PUEBLO — Parkview Health System and UCHealth have finalized a merger agreement Tuesday investing $200 million into the Pueblo community.
The investment from UCHealth will be used to hire more staff and physicians while upgrading equipment and technology at Parkview facilities.
This comes as Parkview Health System is facing lasting struggles due to the pandemic. Todd Seip, the communications specialist for Parkview, said the merger will help the health system stabilize its finances.
"The pandemic was hard, not only for the community but for the providers and for the nurses as well," he said. "We're seeing Parkview, along with many of the other health care providers in Colorado that had negative returns on their balance sheets this year."
Seip said the partnership will also help Parkview address staffing shortages and hire more skilled workers.
"We will find that this merger with Parkview and UCHealth will just strengthen our ability and our human resources department to not only keep our staff that's currently here, better educated and better cared for but will able us to fill in some of those positions that are needed as well," he said.
Part of UCHealth's investment will go toward continuing scholarship programs for nursing students at local universities. Che Casados is in the nursing program at CSU Pueblo and works part-time at Parkview Hospital. He said he has seen how staffing shortages can impact patients.
"It does reflect how patients are treated. They have longer wait times in the waiting room, they have longer wait times to get a bed up on the floor," he said.
Casados said more money to continue scholarship programs will help grow the local workforce.
"I think that just getting that additional help would really help out the hospital and to help out the patients because that's really what is the most important is patient outcomes," he said.
Seip said no job loss will occur due to the merger and patients could see visible changes in logos starting late summer.
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