Apr. 11--Health care is one of the industries expected to lead jobs growth as the nation drags through a jobless recovery to the recession.
That hasn't happened yet in Tucson and Southern Arizona.
Health-care providers locally and nationwide say demand has slacked as patients have lost insurance and put off elective treatments.
But a new hospital -- Diamond Children's Medical Center at University Medical Center -- will likely add a couple hundred jobs locally in the next few years, and local hospitals say they expect to ramp staffing back up as demand increases.
And though the effects of the recently passed federal health-care legislation on the industry are not fully known, some experts say the addition of millions of people with health insurance under the plan may boost the industry.
The Star 200's biggest hospital employer, University Medical Center Corp., kept its payroll essentially flat in 2009 after years of steady growth.
Carondelet Health Network also kept its staff essentially level last year, after its full-time-equivalent employee count fell about 4 percent in 2008.
TMC HealthCare dropped its full-time worker count about 4 percent last year after upstaffing by about the same amount in 2008.
University Physicians Healthcare added 180 full-time equivalent employees in 2009, continuing a steady increase since 2000 except for a flat year in 2007.
Diamond Children's Medical Center will add hundreds of jobs in the next few years as it opens in phases starting later this month.
The new center will add beds while freeing up wards currently used for pediatrics at UMC, said Vicki Began, UMC vice president for women and children's services.
The hospital plans to hire 50 to 60 full-time nurses for the Diamond center, including specialty staffers such as neonatal nurse practitioners, in the next few years, Began said.
New doctors also are expected to come on board, she said, adding that UMC's status as an academic hospital is a draw to physicians.
But the hiring will go beyond just nurses and doctors, to support positions including patient-care technicians, nurse's aides, social workers, physicians' assistants, pharmacists and nutritionists.
All are part of UMC's program of "family-centered care" for pediatric patients.
As the Diamond hospital opens in stages in the coming months, the pace of hiring will pick up based on demand, Began said. "As we gradually open the tower, we will have increased need for people," she said.
In 2008, Carondelet added a new building and a neurological institute at St. Joseph's Hospital, 350 N. Wilmot Road, but that didn't result in many net new jobs, as many current workers moved into new opportunities, said Bob Black, Carondelet's director of work force strategy.
Like many major employers, Carondelet -- which has more than 4,500 local employees -- is always hiring, particularly for critical positions such as skilled nursing, Black said.
But openings that routinely numbered up to a couple hundred fell to as few as 20 or so at times during the depths of the recession, he said, noting that job needs have risen somewhat lately.
"The key thing is to maintain the current level of staffing and have those critical areas of care covered," said Daisy Jenkins, recently named Carondelet's vice president of human resources after retiring as human-resources chief at Raytheon Missile Systems.
TMC likewise is holding staffing steady amid slack demand, spokesman Mike Letson said. TMC has added a small number of skilled computer positions as it plans to move to an electronic medical-records system on June 1, Letson said.
Contact Assistant Business Editor David Wichner at 573-4181 or dwichner@azstarnet.com
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