By Pepper Fisher
(UPDATE: The Board of Commissioners of Olympic Medical Center announced Thursday, after we first published this story, they will hold a special meeting on Friday, June 17, 2022 at 2:30 pm via Web-ex. Connection information is available at http://www.olympicmedical.org/virtual-board-meeting.)
PORT ANGELES – Olympic Medical Center has made a potentially game-changing move to replace the company that manages their Emergency Room facility, and not everyone is confident the move is a good one.
Except for the nurses and techs, emergency medical personnel at OMC are provided and managed by a third-party company. For decades, that company has been PESI Healthcare, furnishing OMC with a group of ER doctors and other staff. But on June 9, OMC officials announced they will not be renewing PESI’s contract when it expires at the end of this month.
OMC has contracted with Sound Physicians to take over the administration of their emergency department. In a statement sent to KONP, CEO Daryl Wolfe said, “Health care has changed, OMC has changed and our patients need us to move our emergency department in a different direction.”
We asked Chief Medical Officer Dr. Scott Kennedy to elaborate on where he thought there was room for improvement in the ER department.
“Lots of things to work on, that we know, but there’s also lots of opportunities for best practices ahead working together. Bringing in a company like Sound will allow us to look at what many other emergency departments are doing around the country, looking at what works. Certainly, it’s a challenging time with the pandemic. With staffing, retirements, preclusion’s, all these factors going on and on with a pandemic. So, there’s lots of challenges at the emergency room, no matter which state you’re in, or which city you’re in, but we really look forward to working on these challenges with Sound.”
In an open letter to the community released Wednesday, a group of Emergency Department Nurses say they are pleading with residents to support them in asking OMC to reconsider the move.
They say the brief timeline in which OMC wants to accomplish the switch-over “is not realistic and extremely dangerous for the individuals who need medical attention.” The letter claims “that up to 18 new providers will need to be on-boarded, credentialed, and trained…in just 3 short weeks.”
But Kennedy says part of the plan is to convince as many of their current ER staff to stay on with the new company.
“Yes, absolutely. We have very talented physicians and PAs in the emergency room currently, and we hope to keep on as many as possible. We’ll see how that goes. But depending on how that goes, Sound Physicians is able to mobilize resources from within Washington State, and they also have providers that have Washington State licenses. They also work very closely with a locum system and can bring temporary positions to bear for this purpose to make sure that we have a solid transition.”
But an ER nurse that we spoke with, who wishes to remain anonymous, says the word around the ER is that few if any ER doctors are going to stay.
The nurse’s letter goes on to say, “A large turnover in Emergency Medical Providers is dangerous in the best of circumstances, let alone when we are seeing a rise in very sick patients and reduced statewide staffing resources.”
Read the complete letter below. At the end is a link to join an OMC-hosted Webex meeting about the transition on Wednesday, June 15 at 6:00pm.
Dear Clallam County,
Olympic Medical Center’s (OMC) Emergency Department Nurse’s would like to plead for your support and collective voices to help advocate for continued quality emergency care. OMC released a statement to the public on their website 6/9/2022 regarding changing OMC’s Emergency Medical Provider group. The Emergency Department staff, including staff whose positions were directly affected were emailed one day prior. The email stated that they are hiring a new physician group in the department effective 7/1/2022 and that our patient demographic has changed. Both of these over generalized explanations carry more significant weight than the community may be aware of, and the timeline in which they wish to accomplish this is not realistic and extremely dangerous for the individuals who need medical attention.
Due to OMC’s decision to change from PESI to Sound Physicians; the majority of the current Emergency Medicine Providers, including physicians and mid-levels, will no longer be working at OMC. This means that up to 18 new providers will need to be on-boarded, credentialed, and trained to OMC’s rural specific hospital processes in just 3 short weeks. On July 1 st there may be no currently working Emergency Medical Providers to guide these new individuals through hospital specific processes. This alone does not bode well for patient safety and outcomes. A large turnover in Emergency Medical Providers is dangerous in the best of circumstances, let alone when we are seeing a rise in very sick patients and reduced statewide staffing resources. It is additionally important to note that Sound Physicians has a 1.5 out of 5-star rating with the Better Business Bureaus with most of the feedback coming directly from patients themselves struggling to navigate billing and lack of response. On Indeed they received a 2.5 out of 5-star rating with reviews that consisted of large pendulum swings from: this place is amazing, to they increase work hours and don’t provide coverage. All of this reads of not just a lack of forethought, but a rushed decision.
Our current Emergency Medical Providers were notified their contract would not be renewed the same morning hospital staff were notified. The administration states that they would ideally like to hire the current Emergency Medical Providers but did not give them a voice in this change. Like everyone they would like to make sure that the companies they work for are ethical, not just to their patients, but to themselves and their families. As we have seen in this pandemic healthcare workers are willing to uproot their lives to move to places that support both patients and medical staff.
OMC Emergency Department has gone through an extreme amount of change since the pandemic, just like every other hospital in the country. OMC’s Emergency Department has experienced the largest registered nurse turnover to date and currently has a significant amount of unfilled positions sustained by RN travelers. The nurses and Emergency Medical Providers who have stayed throughout these difficult years are genuinely passionate about this community. We live here, we have family here, we have experienced our own emergencies here, and we have unanswered questions regarding how this change will affect our community. We are trying to understand and rationalize how this change was made with the community’s safety in mind. What makes it ethical or safe for the nurses and techs to continue to work in this department?
Olympic Medical Center is a public hospital, which means that the public can have a significant voice in how it is run. Please stand with us to force the OMC administration to provide an explanation, a clear pathway and timeline to how they will accomplish this change in Emergency Medical Provider groups without negatively affecting the medical care the community deserves. Hospital Board of Commissioners meeting is 6/15/22 at 6pm, public comment is allowed.
Click here for a path to join the meeting.