West Suburban Medical Center closed patient operations last week, with leadership citing a financial “crisis” driven by major issues with its records and billing software.
Resilience Healthcare CEO Manoj Prasad told West Suburban staff last week that the hospital was closing indefinitely as it didn’t have the money to cover payroll expenses. Prasad put the blame for the financial shortfall on the hospital’s Electronic Medical Record system, which he said had failed to keep up with patient service. He said anywhere from half to 90% of the hospital’s work hadn’t been getting billed properly over the last year, according to the internal email obtained by Wednesday Journal.
“The numbers indicate that at least half of our work was not getting billed, but nobody could understand why,” Prasad wrote to staff. “The EMR vendor’s team with numerous consultants and experts could not understand what the problem was and how to fix it. As a result, for the past year, our hospital has survived on around 10% to 15% of our normal income. To put things in perspective, imagine if your family’s monthly income fell by 90% for a full year: that is how we’ve been feeling.”
In the email, Prasad said that the hospital transitioned to new record keeping software a year ago. Wednesday Journal has learned that the program in question was Paragon Denali, a records system built by Altera Digital Health with rural and community hospitals in mind.
The company addressed West Sub’s closure in a statement to Wednesday Journal.
“Altera Digital Health is devastated to learn of the decision to suspend operations at West Suburban Medical Center, a longstanding pillar of the Oak Park community,” the company said. “Since the implementation of our software at its facilities in mid-2025, we have collaborated closely with Resilience Healthcare and have taken steps to help address the significant operational and financial challenges it has faced. Paragon’s dozens of clients nationwide successfully use our software for revenue cycle operations, and we aim to explore options that could support West Suburban Medical Center in resuming its vital services to the community as soon as possible.”
Company officials did not answer follow-up questions about the matter.
“We are not providing additional statements on the matter at this time,” a company spokesperson said.
Paragon Denali was made available to the market in late 2024, according to a company press release from Feb. 2025. That press release said that Pipeline Health, the entity that owned West Sub and the now-shuttered Weiss Memorial Hospital until Resilience took over the embattled hospitals in 2022, also uses the software in its Los Angeles hospitals.
Over the last year, Wednesday Journal has reported on a variety of financial and other issues at West Sub and at Resilience Healthcare. Those issues include a lawsuit alleging that Resilience Healthcare owes entities associated with Pipeline Health $67 million for the transfer of the hospitals.