The Medical Practice Assn. affiliated with the Kansas University Medical School-Wichita has cut 10 employees.

Lorene Valentine, executive director of the association, said the decision to send laboratory work and medical transcription services to local companies rather than do the work in-house was “painful but necessary” from a business standpoint.

Laboratory work will be done by AMS Laboratories and transcription work by Quality Transcription, both Wichita companies.

“We have been looking at business operations for several months and trying to analyze how we could do things differently to streamline and have some cost savings,” Valentine said.

She said the association didn’t have a high-enough volume of patients to maintain the services itself.

The center also is reorganizing the patient care center and eliminating the nursing supervisor position, she said.

“This has been very, very painful and was not done without a lot of thought and emotion,” Valentine said. “It is in no way a reflection on the employees who were terminated. They were excellent, dedicated employees.”

Valentine said there were five or six positions open in the center’s Medical Practice Assn., from which the 10 were cut, and the terminated employees have been invited to apply for them. There are positions open at Quality Transcription as well, she said.

“We are hopeful that many of these people will still be with us,” Valentine said. “If they choose to work elsewhere, it won’t be difficult for them to find positions.”

The changes will not affect patient care, Valentine said.

“It’s something that patients won’t even notice,” she said.