New study from MNA includes review of Allina Health’s surrender to for-profit companies impacting workers, patients, and Allina’s business.
(St. Paul) – September 26, 2024 – The Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA) today released a new report on the how Allina Health’s ties to financial parties have comprised the healthcare giant’s mission, business, and patient care. The 23-page report includes a review of the two interconnected players influencing patient care, Allina Health System and Piper Sandler; studies the growing corporate influence in local healthcare at Allina; and analyzes how the profit-driven approach of executives has failed in large part.
“Allina Health is the poster child in Minnesota for the growing creep of non-healthcare executives influencing decisions at the bedside,” the report states. “In the past decade, Allina has demonstrated a record of putting profits before patients: reducing and closing services, shifting services from the hospital to more profitable outpatient sites, spending millions to break a strike, and up until June 2023 cutting off services to patients who had accrued at least $4,500 in outstanding bills.”
For both patients and healthcare 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 read the full new report from the Minnesota Nurses Association, click here.
