PeaceHealth Is Laying Off 150 IT Workers as the Work Moves to Outside Vendors

PeaceHealth will permanently eliminate 150 positions across its Washington facilities on November 20, 2026, and the people losing those jobs are the analysts, developers, network administrators and help desk staff who keep a hospital's computers running. The cuts follow the health system's decision to hand much of its information technology work to the Indian company Tech Mahindra and its U.S. healthcare subsidiary, The HCI Group. If you work in hospital IT in Vancouver, Bellingham, Sedro-Woolley or Longview, this is a layoff with a fixed date, a named vendor and a public filing you can read line by line. At Metaintro we read the filing itself rather than the headline, because the notice is where the job titles, the buildings and the terms of the layoff are actually written down. Below is what the notice says, who is affected, whether the vendor is hiring, and what Washington law gives a worker who is let go.

What Does PeaceHealth's WARN Notice Actually Say?

The notice is a short letter with a long attachment. It arrived at the Washington Employment Security Department on 9/17/2026, and the state's public list records it as a permanent layoff of 150 workers in Clark, Skagit, and Whatcom Counties with a start date of 11/20/2026.

The letter itself is plain. It states that PeaceHealth will experience a reduction that constitutes a mass layoff under the Washington WARN Act, and that it expects the permanent elimination of 150 positions across its Washington facilities. It is signed by Elizabeth Lagler, the chief human resources officer.

Two sentences in the letter matter most to the people named in it:

• No bumping. Bumping rights, which let a more senior employee displace a less senior one, do not exist for any impacted positions. A long tenure will not let you displace a less senior colleague to keep a PeaceHealth job.
• Earned wages only. The letter commits to paying caregivers all earned wages at the time of their layoff in accordance with Washington law. It says nothing about severance, so any separation package is something to ask about directly and get in writing.

PeaceHealth calls its staff caregivers, and that word runs through the filing. It is a reminder that the people on this list are hospital employees too, even though none of them sit at a bedside.

Which Jobs and Buildings Are on the List?

The attachment is a spreadsheet of job titles and work sites, and it reads like the org chart of a hospital IT department. The titles include applications systems analysts, field services analysts, service desk associates, network administrators, database administrators, information security analysts, a clinical data scientist, integration developers, telecom support engineers and managers in data science and information security.

Most of the work sites share one address. The Shared Services Center at 1115 SE 164th Avenue in Vancouver appears far more often than any other building, which matches the county count of 119 positions in Clark County. The rest are spread out. Bellingham loses 17 roles and Sedro-Woolley four, including jobs at the Chestnut Building on the South Campus, a property that is up for sale.

The filing also shows sites the county headline leaves out. It lists positions at the LCR Delaware Campus in Longview, outside the three counties on the state list, and at the Riverbend Annex on International Way in Springfield, Oregon. The count for Oregon is two in Springfield. Some of this IT staff works remotely, so a listed building does not always match where a person lives or works each day.

If your title is on that list, treat the notice as confirmation rather than rumor. PeaceHealth has said that everyone directly affected has been notified and will receive support and resources.

The notice gives a date of November 20, 2026 and rules out bumping, so the time to plan is now, not the week the badge stops working.

Why Is PeaceHealth Handing Its IT Work to Tech Mahindra and HCI Group?

The vendor's own announcement spells out the scope. Tech Mahindra and The HCI Group will modernize and manage key IT operations for PeaceHealth, including applications, infrastructure, data and security. In practice that covers three functions, service desk support, infrastructure and network operations, and applications and data services.

The deal is long. It runs as a five-year contract with two optional one-year renewals. Tech Mahindra describes itself as a company of 146,000+ professionals across 90 countries that has supported more than 200 healthcare provider organizations in the United States, and it pairs a global delivery model with what it calls a strong onshore presence.

PeaceHealth keeps the top layer. It will continue to set IT strategy, make technology decisions, oversee cybersecurity and protect patient information, and patient data will stay hosted in the U.S. On-site technology support is meant to continue during and after the switch, and the health system has said the level of on-site support will not decrease.

What PeaceHealth has not shared is the money. Its leaders have not disclosed how much they expect to save by outsourcing, or whether cost savings drove the decision. Staff first heard the plan in an internal memo sent July 29, which gave no number at the time.

The chief executive tried to separate the decision from the people. In her email to staff, Sarah Ness wrote that the move is not a reflection of the talent, commitment or value of PeaceHealth's IT caregivers. That is worth holding on to if you are one of them, because a reference letter built on that sentence is easier to ask for than one built on silence.

Can Affected Workers Move to the Vendor?

Possibly, for some, but nothing is promised yet. Back in July, PeaceHealth said it was working with Tech Mahindra on potential opportunities for some to continue in similar roles. It has not said how many will stay, how many will move to the contractor, or what happens to people affected but not eliminated.

The wider count explains why that matters. PeaceHealth expects fewer than 250 employees in total to be affected by the transition, less than 1.5% of its workforce, and the 150 on the notice are the positions being cut outright. The others sit in between.

The vendor's own hiring page shows where demand is strongest. The HCI Group is hiring highly experienced Epic candidates across a long list of modules, from ASAP and Stork to MyChart, Beacon, OpTime and Cadence, for both acute and ambulatory work. Epic is the electronic health record PeaceHealth runs, and HCI says on its website that it has worked with more than 130 organizations that use Epic. If you hold an Epic certification, that page is the most direct door into the company taking over your work, and our guide to Epic certification explains how that credential changes what you can charge.

A fair question to put to HR in writing is whether a vendor role would match your current pay, location and benefits, and whether turning it down affects any separation terms.

What Does Washington Law Require Before a Layoff Like This?

Washington tightened its rules recently. In 2025 the legislature passed ESSB 5525, which says an employer of 50 or more full-time employees may not order a mass layoff until 60 days after written notice goes to the state and to the affected employees. The PeaceHealth letter refers to the state law as the Washington Securing Timely Notification and Benefits for Laid-Off Employees Act.

The state's definition is specific. A mass layoff is when an employer lays off 50 or more full-time workers during a 30-day period at a single site of employment. The notice has to list job titles, the expected layoff date and, notably for this case, whether the layoff is due to contracting out employer operations or employee positions.

There are teeth if an employer gets it wrong. A business that does not comply may have to pay up to $500 for each day of the violation, or avoid penalties by paying back pay for each day of the violation, up to 60 days, plus the value of lost benefits. A worker who believes the law was broken can sue within 3 years of the alleged violation, and can ask the department to investigate by emailing its layoff assistance team.

The federal rule sits underneath. The U.S. Department of Labor publishes WARN Act guidance for workers and employers on advance notice of qualified plant closings and mass layoffs, though the federal law itself is enforced solely by the federal courts.

A layoff notice is not only a courtesy. In Washington it is a legal clock, and a worker can hold the employer to it in court within 3 years.

How Much Unemployment Can a Laid-Off PeaceHealth IT Worker Get?

More than many people expect, because IT pay is high enough to reach the state cap. Washington works out your weekly amount from the two base-year quarters when you earned the most, and anyone whose formula result tops the official maximum gets $1,208 a week. The floor is $383 a week for those who qualify.

There are two gates to clear. You need 680 hours of work in your base year, and your base year is the first four of the last five completed calendar quarters before you apply. The total you can collect is the smaller of 26 times your weekly amount or one third of your gross base-year wages.

A layoff of this kind usually counts. The department generally treats you as laid off when your employer is not replacing you or eliminated your position, which describes a role handed to an outside vendor. You still need to meet the basic eligibility rules and file weekly claims.

The two Springfield staff are a special case. Their work site is in Oregon, so they should ask which state's rules cover their claim before they file, since the Washington figures above apply to Washington claims.

What Other Help Is There Beyond Unemployment?

Washington runs a team for exactly this moment. Local Rapid Response experts, coordinated through WorkSource, meet workers facing a layoff and explain unemployment benefits, the dislocated worker program and training and reemployment services.

Three programs are worth asking about by name:

• Dislocated Worker program. After a major layoff, employees may be able to get help finding a job or retraining.
• Training Benefits. This program offers extra weeks of benefits while claimants train for careers in high-demand fields, useful if you want to move from service desk work into cloud or security.
• Trade Adjustment Assistance. TAA supports laid-off workers when jobs leave the U.S. and foreign competition makes it hard to compete. The notice does not say where the vendor's work will be done, so whether TAA applies is a question for the Rapid Response team, not an assumption.

Health coverage is the other gap. If your employer plan ends, you may be eligible for plans on the Washington Healthplanfinder marketplace. Price that before your last day rather than after, so a lapse does not catch you mid-treatment.

Is This Part of a Bigger Pattern at PeaceHealth and Other Hospitals?

At PeaceHealth, yes. The health system eliminated about 240 administrative and patient-facing positions last fall, then cut 18 leadership jobs, and earlier this year removed another 94 positions, including nurses. This IT round is the third round of layoffs for the organization in a year. It also comes after the system cut much of its informatics staff, the internal team that handles healthcare information and technology.

The system is large, which is why this matters locally. PeaceHealth is Clark County's largest employer and has approximately 16,000 caregivers and nine medical centers across Washington, Oregon and Alaska. Its leaders say the outsourcing will not touch direct patient care roles.

Across the industry, hospital IT outsourcing has become a trend this year. UnityPoint Health is eliminating 207 IT roles as it moves work to Accenture, with some staff offered roles at the vendor and others severance and career support. Trinity Health is moving its service desk and applications support to an unnamed partner, a shift we examined in our story on Trinity Health's outsourcing deal. The common thread is that internal help desk, infrastructure and application support are the jobs most exposed, while IT strategy, technology decisions and cybersecurity oversight stay in-house.

What This Means for Laid-Off IT Workers, and What Should You Do Next?

The hard truth is that these jobs are not coming back to PeaceHealth's payroll. The contract runs for years, the filing says the cuts are permanent, and no bumping means seniority will not save a seat. The good news is that the skills on that list are the ones every hospital, insurer and health vendor still needs, and the people who ran PeaceHealth's Epic environment and network are exactly who those employers want.

Our view is that the strongest move is to treat the vendor as one option, not the plan. A job with HCI may keep you on familiar systems, but compare it honestly with direct hospital roles, where you keep the in-house perspective that outsourcing contracts cannot buy.

Here is how we would use the weeks before the layoff date:

• Get the terms in writing. Ask HR whether any severance, extended benefits or retention pay is offered, because the notice only promises earned wages.
• Ask about the vendor path early. If you want a role with the contractor, say so now and ask what pay and location it would carry.
• Call Rapid Response. Book time through WorkSource before your last day, and ask directly about Training Benefits and the dislocated worker program.
• File for benefits on time. Apply the week your job ends and keep your weekly claims current, using the state's benefit estimator to plan your budget.
• Rewrite your CV around systems and outcomes. Name the Epic modules, networks and security tools you ran, and the uptime or ticket results you delivered.
• Watch your rights. If the notice period or pay falls short of what the law requires, the state's layoff assistance team will take a complaint.

Losing a job to an outsourcing contract can feel impersonal, because it is. The people on this notice kept the systems of a health network with nine medical centers running, and that record is portable.

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People Also Asked

Q: How many jobs is PeaceHealth cutting in its IT outsourcing?

A: The WARN notice lists the permanent elimination of 150 positions on November 20, 2026, and PeaceHealth expects fewer than 250 employees in total to be affected by the transition.

Q: Who is taking over PeaceHealth's IT work?

A: Tech Mahindra and its U.S. healthcare subsidiary, The HCI Group, will manage key IT operations including applications, infrastructure, data and security, while PeaceHealth keeps IT strategy and cybersecurity oversight.

Q: How much unemployment can a laid-off worker get in Washington?

A: Washington's official maximum weekly benefit is $1,208, and you need 680 hours of work in your base year to qualify, along with meeting the basic eligibility rules.

Looking for your next opportunity? Metaintro brings together 50M jobs, so you can compare health IT, Epic analyst, network and security roles across Washington and Oregon in one search. Create a free profile and set alerts for the titles on your old org chart so the right opening finds you before your last day.