COEUR d'ALENE - An alliance between three cancer care providers in Kootenai and Spokane counties is nearly complete, but the transition will require some employees to reapply with another entity.

Cancer Care Northwest, Kootenai Health and Providence Health Care agreed last year to form a new regional cancer alliance to improve the quality and coordination of care for cancer patients in Kootenai County and Spokane.

As the final details of that alliance take shape, several cancer center employees at Kootenai Health, Sacred Heart and Holy Family hospitals were terminated and are being asked to reapply for their jobs under Cancer Care Northwest and a new entity called Inter-Pacific Alliance for Cancer Care.

Dr. Walter Fairfax, chief medical officer at Kootenai Health, said Monday that it is not the hospital's intent to get rid of any of the employees, but under complicated medical employment laws some of the radiation oncology staff members will have to be under the management of CCN and IPACC.

"Our employees are highly trained and valued employees," Fairfax said. "It is not our intent to disadvantage or lose any of those, but we have to transition.

"Our intent is for these employees to remain in our center, doing the same jobs they are doing now."

Fairfax said the alliance was formed to streamline cancer care in the region rather than compete amongst themselves. Once the alliance is formed, physicians who comprise Spokane Radiology Associates, which currently provides cancer care for the three hospitals, will join physicians at CCN to provide the same services at the hospitals.

While working through the process, Fairfax said, the entities realized that the radiation oncology services needed to be streamlined under one entity.

"We had a substantial number of linear accelerators," Fairfax said, referring to the hospitals. "We over-invested and now we have to streamline that service under a different management structure."

While Fairfax is bound by confidentiality agreements, he said he does not expect radiation oncology physicians to change. However, he said, he cannot control whether or not physicians will decide to be part of the alliance.

"There is no intent to muscle anyone out," he said, emphasizing that radiation oncology professionals are highly trained and valued by Kootenai Health.