Nurses release “Code Blue” report

MNA calls attention to consequences of health care execs’ financial ties to local hospitals

By Lauren Bloomquist

National Nurse magazine - Oct | Nov | Dec 2024 Issue

On Sept. 26, Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) members gathered in downtown Minneapolis outside of the Piper Sandler Heartland Summit conference to call attention to the consequences of executives’ financial ties in our Minnesota hospitals. The Heartland Summit is a conference touting the bringing together of the “most influential CEOs, visionaries and policymakers in health care.”

The panelists at the conference included names like Andrew Witty, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group; President and CEO of Fairview Health Services James Hereford; multiple executives of investment bank Piper Sandler; George Halvorson, the former CEO of Kaiser Permanente and HealthPartners; among others. Clearly missing from the lineup were health care workers and patients — those who work and live through the challenges of our health care system day in and day out. 

Outside of the Heartland Summit, nurses gathered to share MNA’s latest report “Code Blue: How Allina Health’s Financial Ties Compromised Its Mission, Patient Care, and Business” as well as to call on the executives inside to include worker voices in decision-making that affects both workers and patients. 

“I’d like to share a few highlights from this report and how Allina’s actions have affected patient care and health care workers,” said Rachael Ballard, a registered nurse at Allina’s Abbott Northwestern hospital in Minneapolis. “In the past year, Allina, assisted by Huron Consulting group, has implemented aggressive staffing ‘benchmarking’ across its facilities, with a stated ambition of staffing their units at the 40th percentile based on national estimates. As nurses, we see this as Allina’s race to the bottom when it comes to patient care.”

MNA member Tracie Ducksworth, a registered nurse at Fairview Riverside hospital in Minneapolis, also spoke outside the event where the president and CEO of Fairview was speaking: “In the last few years, Fairview announced their partnership with for-profit Acadia Healthcare to build a new state-of-the-art inpatient mental health hospital. This is the same Acadia Healthcare that, earlier [in September], the New York Times found to be holding patients against their will in order to maximize insurance payouts...Hospital executives, like James Hereford, are continuing to make poor decision after poor decision, which directly affects patient care.”

For both patients and health care workers, the report highlights that those with decision-making power are seemingly out of touch with Allina’s frontline workers and the organization’s own messaging to the community, as the ever-growing corporate influence in the Allina system correlates with short staffing through aggressive “benchmarking” practices, questionable changes to the patient care model, the increased use of contracted employees, and more outsourcing of care.  

For Allina, its increasing reliance on the financial sector parallels the ballooning of Allina’s debt to $1.7 billion, and its credit rating dropping from AAA to AA-. With Allina’s board led by Debbra Schoneman, a Piper Sandler executive whose investment bank earned $5.2 million in fees along with other bond underwriters, one might ask, “Who is profiting from the increased debt load that has sunk Allina’s rating?” 

To access MNA’s Code Blue report, visit mnnurses.org/CodeBlueReport.