Virtua says its Camden emergency department remains fully staffed, but longtime physicians and advanced practice providers are leaving after the hospital switched staffing companies.
CAMDEN, N.J. — Nearly two dozen emergency department clinicians are leaving Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital after the health system changed the company responsible for staffing the ER, according to a report by the Inquirer.
Virtua ended its contract with Envision Healthcare on Sept. 30 and moved the department to TeamHealth, the same company used across the rest of the Virtua system.
The change prompted a wave of departures among physicians and advanced practice providers who had worked in the Camden emergency department, including several longtime leaders.
Longtime ER Staff Depart
Among those leaving is Dr. Al Sacchetti, who spent more than four decades at Lourdes.
Former emergency department leaders said most of the existing team did not remain under the new contract arrangement.
Former medical director Dr. Monika Smith said 21 physicians and advanced practice providers were offered contracts with TeamHealth and only one accepted a continuing position, while several others agreed to work on an as-needed basis.
Some departing clinicians said the proposed contracts included pay cuts of roughly 20% to 30%.
Sacchetti, Smith and former clinical operations director Ross Simcoe said they were not offered positions to remain in the Lourdes emergency department, though they were offered roles elsewhere in the Virtua system.
“The hospital wanted to make a change, and that’s why I’m not there anymore,” Sacchetti said.
Virtua Says ER Is Fully Prepared
Virtua said the decision was made to standardize emergency department staffing across the health system.
“With Lourdes being the one outlier, there was a desire for consistency across the entire enterprise to move to the other provider at all seven locations,” a Virtua spokesperson said.
Virtua also said the Camden emergency department “is fully prepared and able to support the needs of the community through the transition to TeamHealth.”
There has been no public finding that the transition has caused unsafe care or inadequate ER coverage.
Loss of Experience Raises Questions
The more immediate concern is continuity.
The departing team includes clinicians with decades of experience inside the hospital and in the surrounding Camden County community.
One former physician assistant said, “We had over 100 years experience that they just let go.”
For an emergency department, that kind of turnover can mean losing staff who know the hospital’s specialists, internal procedures and patient population.
Virtua has said the transition is intended to create consistency across its network, while departing clinicians have raised concerns about the effect of contract terms and the loss of longtime staff.
Camden Hospital Serves Major Regional Role
Virtua Our Lady of Lourdes is a major South Jersey medical center and serves patients from across the region.
That makes the staffing transition more than an internal contracting change.
The question now is whether Virtua can replace the departing experience without affecting wait times, staffing levels or continuity of care in one of the region’s busiest emergency departments.