16 ER doctors resign from VBMC-Harlingen

HARLINGEN - A group of 16 emergency medicine doctors has submitted a collective resignation to Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen, saying the hospital administration’s focus on “metric results” could reduce the doctors’ income and compromise patient care.

Valley Emergency Physicians, LLP, a business partnership of physicians who work at Valley Baptist’s emergency department, submitted a memorandum to the hospital’s staff Sept. 10 notifying them of the group’s resignation, effective in December. The physicians’ group has worked at Valley Baptist for 15 years.

“We submitted our resignation with deep regret after a period of soul-searching about the effect the hospital’s terms would have on patient care and our working environment,” the memorandum says.

A copy of the memo was given to Valley Freedom Newspapers and its contents confirmed by Dr. Michael Mohun, Valley Baptist’s chief of emergency medicine.

The memo says that the doctors tried to comply with the hospital administration’s expectations of the department, which included meeting performance measures under Six Sigma, a quality-improvement program.

The document doesn’t specify the goals doctors were expected to meet, but said the goals “would punish the doctors for caring for the sickest and most complex patients and working at the busiest times.”

Problems such as staff shortages and an increase in the number of patients also are contributing to the doctors’ loss in income, the memo states, and the doctors felt pressured to focus on “metric results over patient care or lose income.”

In August, Valley Baptist officials claimed that implementing Six Sigma measures had reduced emergency room wait times, as well as cutting down on medication errors and heart-attack deaths.

Valley Baptist Health System held a conference for hospitals throughout the region and state, touting Six Sigma’s ability to improve efficiency and patient care.

The physicians’ group tried to cooperate with Six Sigma goals but thinks the hospital is promoting “corporate values” over health-care quality, the group’s memorandum says.

“We participated in Six Sigma from the beginning and have always sought ways to improve our efficiency, but not at the cost of patient care or in an environment motivated by fear,” the memorandum says.

Negotiations between the physicians’ group and Valley Baptist recently broke down, Mohun said. He declined to elaborate on specifics of those negotiations beyond what was said in the memorandum.

“We just couldn’t come to terms (with Valley Baptist administrators) on what we wanted,” Mohun said. “We had an incredible group of doctors, and it truly is unfortunate.”

In a statement, Valley Baptist said its goal is to maintain high standards of patient care, and that staff and physicians are expected to adopt those standards.

“We embrace all efforts to improve care, and reject any insinuation or statement that our motives are otherwise,” the statement says.

The statement says that the hospital is striving to surpass national benchmarks for health-care quality, and to do so must address ER wait times, heart-attack treatment standards and pneumonia care, among other issues.

“Our interest has been and remains to work with an ER physician group who shares this vision, and who is also willing to be held accountable for the highest quality of patient care,” the hospital’s statement says.

Mohun said he expected that the physicians’ group would be replaced through a national corporation or agency.

Doctors in the Valley Emergency Physicians group are planning to take jobs in the upper Valley or out of state, he said.

Valley Baptist officials declined to comment specifically on how the doctors will be replaced, referring to the hospital’s statement.

The Harlingen group’s resignation will not affect Valley Baptist-Brownsville’s emergency department, which employs a separate group of physicians, said Valley Baptist spokeswoman Teri Retana in a statement.