A Kansas City-area medical director was fired after urging his bosses to hire more staff to fill shortages, accusing them of putting profit over patient care.
dr Ray Brovont served as the medical director at Overland Park Regional Medical Center in Overland, Kansas, near the Missouri border, and was previously an Army physician.
He told NBC this week that he was fired after urging executives and other leaders to make crucial changes that would improve patient care and help stressed and burned-out employees.
Other doctors and nurses say it’s a common occurrence in the industry, accusing private recruiting firms of prioritizing profits above anything else in the healthcare industry.
dr Ray Brovont (pictured) was the former Medical Director of Overland Park Regional Medical Center in Overland, Kansas. He claims that hospital management values profits through patient care and has left the emergency room critically understaffed
Brovont told NBC that the emergency department (ER) staffing shortage was most critical, as hospital management wanted to continue expanding the department without adding the necessary staff.
“These administrators who make these changes and implement these policies don’t feel the downstream impact of their policy changes,” Brovont said.
“You look at the result, and the result is, ‘Hey, we’re making money.’
The hospital where Brovont worked is owned by HCA, a for-profit healthcare system based in Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2014, HCA decided to double its size to 343 beds and add a pediatric emergency department.
The former medical director says his staff have been asked to be in “three places at once” while juggling multiple crises.
Patients in the emergency department are by definition in need of the most urgent care, as they often arrive in a dire situation.
Brovont said that sometimes when a doctor was responding to a “Code Blue” situation — when a patient’s heart stopped beating or their breathing stopped — they would leave an emergency room patient unattended, which violates standard safety protocols.
Brovot (pictured) was awarded $29 million in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit that was later appealed for $26 million after he was fired in 2017
In 2015, Brovont reached a turning point as he believed the hospital’s expansion was making an already dire situation worse.
He raised the issue with EmCare, the healthcare staffing company that worked with the hospital. It is owned by Dubilier & Rice, a private equity firm.
Hiring an additional doctor would solve the problem, Brovont believed, since it would allow them to have at least one doctor available to screen incoming ER patients and comply with federal guidelines.
He tells NBC that Dr. Patrick McHugh, an EmCare employee who served as his boss and is now not with the company, said his request could not be fulfilled due to financial constraints and that “profits are in everyone’s best interest”.
In late 2016, he wrote a memo to management reiterating his concerns and was fired in January 2017.
Overland Park Regional Medical Center (pictured) is owned by HCA, a for-profit healthcare company. It works with EmCare, which has parent company Envision, to meet its staffing needs
“Envision clinicians, like all clinicians, use independent judgment to provide high-quality, compassionate, and clinically appropriate care based on the unique needs of their patients,” said Envision, EmCare’s parent company, in a statement on the matter.
‘The one from Dr. Brovont’s concerns were related to a hospital policy, not an Envision policy, and predate Envision’s current leadership team.’
Brovont filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit and was awarded $29 million by a jury, which was later reduced to $26 million on appeal.
Envision’s emergency medicine group operates from more than 540 facilities across the country, the company told NBC.
Staff shortages in hospitals, nursing homes, and similar facilities have long been a problem in the United States
A shortage of available labor due to the high barrier to entry, combined with low wages in some areas, mixed with private equity firms and other for-profit companies investing in the industry, has created a recipe for disaster.
While Brovont’s story began well before Covid, the pandemic has only made things worse.
Working long hours in grim conditions – during which it has become commonplace in some key areas to see dozens of patients dying – has caused many workers to leave in droves, adding to an already existing problem.