Confluence Health Eliminates More High-Level Positions, Including Communications Head
The head of marketing and communications and vice president of human resources both saw their positions abruptly eliminated this week
The director of Confluence Health’s Communications and Marketing Department, Katie Grove, and the Vice President of Human Resources, Tom Christensen, joined the cadre of high-level employees to leave or be pushed out of that organization this week.
They weren’t terminated, but rather their positions were eliminated, wrote Confluence spokesperson Adam MacDonald in an email on Aug. 9.
“As of yesterday, the positions of the vice president of human resources and the director of marketing and communications were eliminated as part of leadership structure changes at Confluence Health. Due to these positions being eliminated, yesterday was also the last day at Confluence Health for Tom Christensen and Katie Grove,” he wrote.
They are the most recent high-level employees to leave Confluence in what has become a recent trend some sources within the organization liken to a purge.
They join former Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr. Jason Lake and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Glenn Adams (which I have reported on) and Tracey Kasnic, who transitioned from chief nursing officer (CNO) to vice president of special projects in late February. CNO is a chief position above all VPs, so that transition was not a promotion.
Confluence Health’s marketing and communications department had eight employees before Grove’s position was eliminated, and MacDonald wrote those employees will now report to the VP of “strategic initiatives and analytics.”
“Those previous direct reports in that department will now report directly to the vice president of strategic initiatives and analytics,” he wrote. “This is due to leadership structure change, not a buyout or merger of any kind.”
It is not clear if Grove or Christensen knew this would be their last week at Confluence. Grove did not respond to a request for comment. I was unable to reach Christensen and Lake. Kasnic and Adams declined to comment.
The news comes the same week that the Wenatchee World published an interview with Confluence’s new CEO, Dr. Andrew Jones, about staffing, finances and the future of the largest healthcare provider in the region.
In it, Jones makes a point to communicate that Confluence hasn’t technically fired anyone.
“We haven’t done any layoffs. We’ve been very purposeful up to this point. It evolves,” he said.
It is unclear if those who had their positions eliminated were offered other employment opportunities with Confluence Health, but it is something I will ask MacDonald about.
I will update this piece when I have more information about that.
In Other News
A couple local “Moms for Liberty” attended the Wenatchee School Board meeting this week. One was Emma Philley, who spoke out about the rule that guides how the district decides what content is banned from Wenatchee schools and libraries. Philley has children, but none of them attend Wenatchee Schools.
I filmed Philley’s address to the board during public comment time.
After she made her public comment, I asked Philley if she’d like to say anything else about what type of content should be banned from Wenatchee Schools. She did not like that and later complained about it in the local Moms for Liberty Facebook group.
Some readers might recognize “Anna Wit” (aka Anna Witherington) as the individual who worked to organize “bodies” to go harass the Wenatchee School Board over mask mandates during the Covid pandemic. She is actually a Wenatchee School District employee who works at Mission View Elementary.
I covered that in my very first piece about Grace City Church’s impact on the Wenatchee Valley after NCWlife censored any mention of GCC on my show, Common Sense. Although Station Manager Eric Grandstrom said “you can blog about it (GCC),” the program was later cancelled because GCC members complained about my articles.
Witherington is listed among GCC members in their online database. The Philleys are not.
The school board also voted to join a class action lawsuit against major social media companies during that meeting, and you can read more about that here.
I was one of only two reporters who attended the meeting in person, and the only one to get a quote from Superintendent Kory Kalahar about why the district joined the suit.
You can listen to that here.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Philley’s spouse was running for Wenatchee school board at the time. That is not the case.
What is the salary of The Confluence CEO ? Compare that to the patient providers at every level. He should be taking a cut. The problem as I see it is there are not enough providers to meet demand at this time and now money is tight. Overhead management is the only realistic place to make cuts to afford more providers. Increased population is putting unmet demands on many local and regional services.
Watch out Dom! Josh Philley might challenge you to meet him, "out by the bike racks!"