Local nurses have delivered a petition to the PeaceHealth Board of Directors, signed by more than 6,800 supporters of Eugene Emergency Physicians. It’s the latest effort to call out the hospital system’s plan to outsource emergency room care to an out-of-state corporate group.
Since becoming a registered nurse in 2000, Brandy Kirlin has worked side-by-side with EEP docs in PeaceHealth emergency departments. Now, she has grave concerns about the hospital’s plan to swap the physicians she knows and trusts, with traveling doctors hired by Georgia-based ApolloMD.
“When you replace an entire ER, my fear is that there’s going to be a whole lot of stumbling around,” Kirlin said. “Things are gonna get missed. And doing it on such a large scale is going to cost someone their life.”
The Oregon Nurses Association started the petition in February, shortly after the hospital announced it would end its 35-year contract with EEP. The union has yet to hear back from the PeaceHealth board.
Some background
Since the contract decision was made public, PeaceHealth executives have faced intense scrutiny and widespread criticism from the ONA, hospital medical staff, firefighters, elected officials and community members—with many sharing concerns that PeaceHealth's proposed change could negatively impact patient care.
The emergency department transition proposal is also facing legal challenges including a lawsuit brought by EEP and two other plaintiffs against PeaceHealth and ApolloMD in federal court. PeaceHealth Oregon spokesperson Jim Munez has been quoted as saying "the litigation from Eugene Emergency Physicians is without merit,"
Oregon lawmakers and healthcare providers have questioned whether the move complies with Oregon’s corporate practice of medicine laws which prevent private equity firms and corporations from influencing medical decisions or interfering in patients’ care.
PeaceHealth Oregon’s Chief Hospital Executive, Dr. Jim McGovern, is one of the primary decisionmakers in the switch from EEP to ApolloMD. McGovern was placed on administrative leave by PeaceHealth on April 9 after more than 300 pages of emails were shared by medical staff showing “Dr. McGovern repeatedly trying to influence and dictate patient care against providers’ clinical judgment and violating the scope of his administrative license,” according to the medical executive committee at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center Riverbend.
McGovern does not have a medical license in Oregon. He has been ordered to testify in a federal court hearing as part of the EEP lawsuit.
PeaceHealth RiverBend Chief of Staff and medical executive committee member Dr. Will Emerson told KLCC questions began to circulate about the timing of McGovern’s outsourcing decision– as it appeared to come just weeks after he learned that staff, including members of EEP, had complained about his actions.
Emerson called the ApolloMD request-for-proposal (RFP) process and decision “irreparably compromised” and said it “raises the strong possibility that the RFP decision may have been retaliatory in nature.”
The medical executive committee is among those calling on PeaceHealth to reverse its decision and continue its relationship with Eugene Emergency Physicians.
ONA stands by EEP
In a statement Thursday, the ONA said “PeaceHealth’s attempt to outsource emergency care is part of a larger pattern of profit-focused decisions by PeaceHealth executives.” The union noted such decisions as closing Eugene’s only hospital—leaving nearly 200,000 residents in Oregon’s third-largest city without a hospital or emergency room, shuttering local healthcare options including a sleep clinic and pediatric cardiology service in Springfield closing medical and optometry clinics in Eugene and ending home infusion services.
PeaceHealth has also conducted layoffs of caregivers and support staff, sometimes multiple times per year.
PeaceHealth RN Kirlin said the nearly 7,000 signatures on the ONA petition prove that the community is concerned and they understand that the risk involved in the emergency medicine transition could be theirs to bear.
And she’s frustrated with hospital leadership.
“It’s not just the ONA, EEP, or the medical staff that’s concerned,” Kirlin said. “It’s the community. And PeaceHealth doesn’t seem to want to address that in any meaningful way.”
