PORT ANGLES — Sound Physicians has fulfilled its original goal of hiring 10 providers for Olympic Medical Center’s emergency department but is adding two more positions.
The emergency department is overseen by its new medical director, Dr. Joseph Chang.
“You’re pretty much going to have a full complement here pretty quickly,” Stephanie Perry, regional vice president of Sound Physicians, told commissioners.
Perry said all of the providers who have been hired are experienced clinicians, not new medical school graduates.
“The permanent team is being built very well,” Perry said.
Sound Physicians plans to add another doctor and either a physician’s assistant or a nurse practitioner, Perry said.
Chang will be taking over the role held by Dr. Frank Klanduch when Sound Physicians took over the emergency department at OMC last summer. He had served in an interim capacity.
Originally from Taiwan, Chang earned his doctorate from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. During his residency, he earned a master’s in business administration specializing in Healthcare Management from the University of Chicago.
“My career path has gone all over the globe, from New York, Texas, California, New Mexico, Shanghai and Beijing,” Chang told the OMC commissioners on Wednesday. “My most recent assignment was in Qatar helping to start a new hospital and open a new emergency department.”
Chang is also a physician consult with the Joint Commission International, an organization dedicated to working for health care quality and patient safety globally.
“My interests are in quality and process improvement,” Chang said.
Along with Chang, 10 other providers will be on board — four have been working for the department for a couple of months — lessening OMC’s dependence on locums contracts for providers, officials said.
Permanent emergency providers are Dr. Bryan Bennett, Dr. Andrew Bolano, Dr. Christine Davis, Dr. Adam Rush, Dr. Heather Stuart, Dr. Martin Watterson, Dr. Jamison Zink, Emergency Nurse Practitioners Fred Barton and Maj. Rachel Whisenand, and Physician Assistant Julian Hernandez.
Perry also said the onboarding process has been going smoothly as they help providers adjust to OMC and how it works.
“We wanted to make sure our providers weren’t just given a login and a pager and told good luck,” Perry said. “We really wanted them to get introduced to OMC and really know what the culture is, who the people are, and how they are going to be set up for success.”
The onboarding process spans four to six days with the first three days spent on education and orientation and two to three days spent in mentored shifts.
Dr. Krishna Nimmagadda, regional medical director for Sound Physicians, said the emergency department has improved.
The department still serves about 65-75 patients on a daily basis, he said.
“We haven’t seen any major shift in volumes over the last year,” Nimmagadda said.
Additionally, the number of patients leaving without being seen and the time waiting to be seen has dropped over the last year due to changes in the emergency department to reduce these issues, Nimmagadda said.
“Since we implemented these new processes, when people check in, we’ve been able to keep the left-without-being-seen rates down at 3 percent,” Nimmagadda said.
In June 2022, 9 percent of emergency patients would leave without being seen or leave after being triaged and without seeing a doctor.
Wait times, specifically wait times from walking in the door to seeing a provider, also dropped from an average of 108 minutes to 40 minutes, according to data from Sound Physicians.
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Reporter Ken Park can be reached at kpark@peninsuladailynews.com.
