Valley Health/Warren Memorial Hospital Admin Explain ER Physicians Contractor’s Internal Dispute and Resignations

Royal Examiner was contacted by a reader who had heard that there had been a physician’s resignation incident at the Emergency Room at Warren Memorial Hospital (WMH) recently. After contacting staff at the hospital at multiple levels, we were put in touch with Valley Health Media Relations Coordinator Erica Logsdon, who is based out of Winchester Medical Center. Logsdon forwarded our questions to Jennifer Coello, Vice President of Operations at Warren Memorial Hospital, who told us this:

“Valley Health contracts with a large private physician group to provide physician coverage in all of our emergency rooms at levels consistent with national standards. We have been informed that due to an internal dispute within their private practice, some of the ER physicians working at Warren Memorial Hospital have resigned from the group. Losing a handful of physicians in a group of 150 providers will not directly impact staffing at any of our hospitals and we are confident in the group’s ability to continue to provide physician coverage with training and experience equal or better than the departing physicians.”

We had some follow-up questions regarding the parameters of the contracting ER physicians group’s “internal dispute” and any impacts, even temporary, the contractor MD resignations may have had on Emergency Room operations at WMH. For upon our arrival at the Emergency Room side of WMH earlier in the week, if the parking lot was any indicator there was likely a fully staffed department on hand.

We hope all those parked cars aren’t hospital ER doctors indicating an over-abundance of Emergency Room medical emergencies anticipated locally the first week of October 2024. No, probably just a convenient spot for staffs at multiple levels on that side of Warren Memorial Hospital. Royal Examiner Photos Roger Bianchini

Vice President of Operations at Warren Memorial Hospital Coello responded to our follow-up questions:

Question: Can you give us the name of the physician group you contract with for ER doctors?

Reply: “Emergency Medicine of Blue Ridge”

Question: Was the Internal Dispute related to Valley Health system wide, or specific to Warren Memorial Hospital and its ER operations? And do you know the parameters of the contractor’s internal dispute with its MDs?

Reply: “We do not know the specific events that led to the physicians leaving their private practice, but there are no issues at any of the other Valley Health hospitals. —  To be clear, the ‘contractor’ is a physician-owned group with a dispute between physicians.”

Question: Has the situation impacted, even temporarily, the number of ER physicians available & ER operations at WMH??

REPLY: “The departure of a handful of physicians in a 150+ provider group has had no impact, short or long-term, on the physician staffing at any of our hospitals. Our Emergency Department operations continue as normal.”

Question: What is the number of ER docs on per shift at Warren Memorial, and what is the National Standard for a hospital in our population/service area?

Answer: The number of ER providers varies by time of day and day of week depending on anticipated patient volume, but ranges from 1-3, many times with overlapping shifts. Most importantly, we also have the ability to reach out to EMBR for additional assistance when we have patient surges.”

Question: Has that number remained stable from the old North Shenandoah Avenue hospital to the new one-off Leach Run Parkway?

Answer: “Warren Memorial added additional staff in our emergency room, as well as many other areas of the hospital, with the move to our new facility,” Warren Memorial VEEP of Operations Coello said in concluding our Q&A.

With Warren Memorial and Valley Health personnel not directly connected to the ER contractor group’s inner dynamics leading to the internal dispute we attempted to get an explanation directly from Emergency Medicine of Blue Ridge (EMBR) staff, particularly as information from the original inquiry to us indicated a management order reducing the ER MD’s shift number at WMH may have been at issue.

Again, with the assistance of Valley Health Media Relations Coordinator Erica Logsdon, we got the following response from EMBR Emergency Medicine MD David J. Watts: “I’m not able to comment on internal discussions around specific business decisions within our practice. I will say that in any company, not everyone agrees with every decision. However, we have Valley Health’s full support for the provider schedules we have in place in each of our emergency rooms, and our provider ratios meet or exceed benchmarks,” Watts told us.

So, while detail regarding the internal physicians dispute within the EMBR contractor’s system remains elusive, it would appear from Valley Health/Warren Memorial Hospital Administrator Coello’s responses that things appear to be proceeding normally and fully staffed on their end.

And that is good news for anyone who experiences a medical emergency in this community requiring an emergency services response and hospitalization. And we will take that “to the bank”, if hopefully NOT the WMH Emergency Room, again.

Oh, by the way

This gives this reporter another opportunity to thank both Warren Memorial Hospital, albeit at the old WMH site, and the Winchester Medical Center Emergency Room staff, as well as EMT first responders and Paula, for their respective actions in saving this reporter’s life on New Year’s Eve 2012, when he had his cardiac arrest, near-death experience. Keep up the good work, ER staff at both the above and all Valley Health hospitals.