Hospitals' chief: Efficiency cuts costs

The head of Long Island's biggest employer made a pitch for efficiency at a recent breakfast meeting -- a virtue that, he said, could be adopted by government as well as business.

Anyone who thinks of North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System as just an employer of doctors and nurses should have been at the Long Island Real Estate Group's breakfast in Old Westbury Wednesday morning, where the hospital system's chief executive, Michael Dowling, was the guest speaker.

Dowling ticked off some statistics that opened the eyes of many at the 8 a.m. session.

The Manhasset-based system, which owns 15 hospitals on the Island and others in New York City, is the largest employer in Nassau and Suffolk, with 43,000 workers. Moreover, he said, the system's laundry cleans 25 million pounds of clothing a year. Its valets park 400,000 cars a year. Its kitchens serve one million meals a month.

"We're in the restaurant business," Dowling said. "We're also in the parking business."

Some 25,000 babies are born at its hospitals annually: "In Ireland," Dowling said, "that's a city." Dowling was born in Limerick in the Republic of Ireland.

The system interviews 204,000 job candidates a year and hires 5,600 of them. The system has acquired 10 hospitals on Long Island in the last decade.

Dowling's message: The health system has been able to reduce its costs through efficiencies at the hospitals it has acquired. Long Island school districts, towns and villages could do the same, if they consolidated, he said.

"People who say that can't be done -- I say you're full of it. You just don't want to deal with it."

LIREG president David Einbinder said Dowling's message came across loud and clear.

"I think he focused all of the people in the room to look at themselves and make themselves and their businesses as efficient as possible and to realize the world is changing and we need to make changes."

But can North Shore's spectacular growth continue? "You've got to make sure you can manage what you have," Dowling said. "At this moment we have enough on our plate. But that's not to preclude looking at other possibilities."