Summa Health System has lost accreditation for its emergency medicine residency program and has been placed on immediate probation by the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education, according to an internal memo sent late Wednesday night to employees.
The accreditation will be withdrawn effective July 1, the memo says. “Probation means we cannot start any new residency programs, we cannot increase the size of our existing programs and we must notify our current residents and applicants that we are on probation,” Summa Health Chief Operating Officer Valerie Gibson wrote.
“Needless to say, we are extremely disappointed by the decision, we respectfully disagree with the decision and we will appeal the decision within the next 30 days as allowed ... Our program will remain in continued accreditation during the appeal process.”
Residents in the first or second year of the three-year emergency medicine residency program at Summa must now find a new hospital by July 1 to finish their training.
“I can assure you we will do everything possible to assist them,” Gibson said in the memo.
Residents play a vital role in staffing at large training hospitals. The residents care for patients under the supervision of an attending physician.
The issue doesn’t affect other residency programs or impact the hospital’s controversial emergency room contract with U.S. Acute Care Solutions.
The hospital system has been in turmoil since late December when, after failed contract negotiations, Summa President and Chief Executive Dr. Thomas Malone abruptly replaced Summa Emergency Associates (SEA) — which had served Akron City Hospital’s emergency room for more than 30 years — with a group of doctors from U.S. Acute Care Solutions, a private company run by the husband of a physician who had been part of the negotiations with SEA.
The change inflamed simmering tensions between Malone and many Summa doctors, and eventually led to Malone turning in his resignation in late January. He agreed to stay in the role for up to 60 days while Summa’s board of directors conducts a search for his successor.
“There are several factors that led to the ED transition and, ultimately, today’s decision by ACGME,” Gibson wrote in the memo. “Without question, the process of attempting to negotiate a new agreement with SEA should have happened sooner.”
But she also stated that she was disappointed in the SEA leadership for “bad faith negotiations and its repeated attempts to harm our Emergency Medicine Residency Program.”
“The decision to transition to a new emergency medicine services provider was absolutely the right decision to make for our community, but I am sorry for the impact it has had on the organization,” Gibson wrote.
Dr. Jeff Wright, who leads SEA, took issue with Gibson’s comments.
“SEA ran that residency since its inception in 1980 for 36.5 years,” he wrote in an email. “It was one of the best ER residencies in the country. USACS and Summa ran it for one month without our physicians and it lost its accreditation.”
He also stated that Gibson, the lead negotiator on the contract, went on vacation during negotiations.
“The loss of the Summa ER program is an asset to the community that Summa [administration] and USACS need to be held accountable for,” Wright wrote. “ All the local hospitals (Aultman, CCF, Canton Mercy, Dover and Robinson) recruit from this ER program. All of this can still be fixed. The only answer is to bring our group, SEA, back. No other option will work.”
A message has been left with a Summa spokesperson seeking more information.
Check back with Ohio.com throughout the day for more on this developing story.