Hospitalists at the Sacred Heart Medical Centers in Springfield, Ore., and Eugene, Ore., are making their complaints public: they say the number of hospitalists at the medical centers is dangerously low, according to The Register-Guard.
"The more patients you have, the faster you have to go through the large amounts of information, and something is likely to get missed," Sacred Heart hospitalist David Schwartz, MD, told The Register-Guard. "There are also only so many hours in the day. People, even doctors, need rest. When the work is continuous/nonstop, people start to burn out."
Last spring, administrators from the medical centers' parent company, Vancouver, Wash.-based PeaceHealth, announced the possibility of outsourcing hospitalist employment to a third party. As a result, 15 hospitalists (12 full-time equivalent physicians) gave their notice and left last summer, bringing numbers down from 39 hospitalists (37 FTE) to 27 hospitalists (25 FTE). This number will go down again to 24 (22.5 FTE) in May, according to the report.
PeaceHealth administration is currently bargaining with the newly formed hospitalist union, Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association. Meanwhile, they are employing temporary hospitalists, called locum tenens.
"We need to make sure we have the right number of providers to care for our patients at all times," PeaceHealth spokesman Jim Godbold said. "Locums are an expensive option but can be in place quickly and for limited durations while we conduct our national search for permanent staff. This is a very important bridge to allow the time to find providers who are a good long-term fit for the community. We are expecting to be successful in this process just as we have been in the past."
However, no permanent hires have been made since last March, according to Dr. Schwartz. He says the hospitalists' ' concerns and requests for information about third-party groups have been ineffective.
Mr. Godbold confirmed PeaceHealth discussed a possible relationship with Tacoma, Wash.-based Sound Physicians, but administrators are also considering other options, according to the report.
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