Family Care Network’s inpatient care program at the PeaceHealth hospital is ending April 30, and the health care organization said it is “unsure” what the impact will be on its providers and staff.
Michele Anderson, FCN’s marketing director, declined to provide the number of affected positions as they “work through this transition,” she wrote in an email Thursday, March 6.
The inpatient care program at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center began 15 years ago. The program matched FCN hospitalists with FCN patients admitted to St. Joseph in an effort to provide continuity of care and relationships. Hospitalists are clinicians who specialize in general hospital care.
The change does not impact the care provided to any patient, including FCN patients, hospitalized at St. Joseph, said Amy Drury, PeaceHealth senior director of marketing and communications.
Beginning May 1, SoundPhysicians will care for FCN patients who are hospitalized, Drury said in a statement emailed to Cascadia Daily News on Thursday. SoundPhysicians, which employs hospitalists at PeaceHealth, has already been caring for FCN patients overnight from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., she added.
“It is critical that patients not delay their care because of an incorrect perception about a staffing transition,” Drury wrote in the email.
Drury wrote “Family Care Network recently informed PeaceHealth that they were making the business decision” to shutter the program. Anderson did not immediately respond to CDN’s question about PeaceHealth’s statement. In an earlier request for information, she declined to detail the reasoning behind shuttering the program.
PeaceHealth did not respond to a question about whether more staff would be hired to fill the hole left by FCN’s program, a concern shared by remaining PeaceHealth hospitalist Meg Lelonek, who said last week she worried providers would need to see 20% to 30% more patients a day.
Lelonek was later told PeaceHealth was ironing out contract details with SoundPhysicians to hire 10 more full-time hospitalists pending contract negotiations, which would significantly relieve that pressure.
Anderson wrote Thursday FCN has heard “limited” public feedback about ending the program.
FCN is working with affected clinicians to support internal transfer opportunities, “which may help mitigate the potential impact of this change,” Anderson wrote last week.
Both FCN and PeaceHealth told Cascadia Daily News that they are working to provide a smooth transition.
Julia Tellman, Isaac Stone Simonelli and Audra Anderson contributed to this report.
