Summa Health President and CEO Dr. Thomas Malone sent a memo to his staff on Monday night apologizing for the “disruptions to both our patients and our employees” following the recent ER physician switch.
Malone is facing pressure to resign after no-confidence votes by hundreds of area doctors and resident physicians after abruptly changing emergency medicine doctors to staff Akron City Hospital and four other locations on New Year’s Day.
In his memo, Malone said leadership stands behind its decision.
But he acknowledged this and other changes at the health system over the past two years have been challenging for doctors and employees.
“I regret any unnecessary pain they may have caused,” he said in the memo.
Malone said he believes he’s had to make hard changes to turn around the health system, which was financially struggling two years ago.
“I think it is fair to say that when I arrived here 24 months ago, the financial picture was bleak, and there were real questions about whether the system might have to be sold to an out-of-town organization,” Malone said. “Those circumstances called for far-reaching change, and my duty as CEO was — and is — to lead those changes, and make some very tough decisions. Today we are in a much better financial position.”
He committed to doing a better job of listening to “the valuable input that our physicians and other employees have to offer.”
“You have my commitment to develop a plan to engage more effectively with physicians and follow that with a plan that covers all our employees,” Malone said.
Stephanie York, vice president of Hennes Communications, a Cleveland-based crisis communications firm with offices in Akron, advises clients facing controversial issues to “communicate proactively and transparently by telling the truth, telling it all and telling it first.”
Summa hasn’t contacted Hennes, said York, who was the longtime spokeswoman for retired Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic and also served for a short time as a spokeswoman for Summa’s cross-town rival, Cleveland Clinic Akron General.
York said Malone’s memo is “pretty effective” and follows the advice, “if you mess up, fess up and fix up.”
“It’s a good first step, but now that he has made promises, he needs to deliver or he will be in an even worse position than before,” she said.
York said it’s possible for Malone to survive the controversy, but “his reputation has taken a severe hit with comparisons to Scott Scarborough’s University of Akron issues, the outing of his cigar-smoking Facebook photo contradicting hospital hiring policy, and the internal rumblings of an iron-fisted leadership culture.
“To get past this, he must back up his words with actions, and be relentlessly transparent, talking frequently and consistently with internal audiences, being available for inquiries from conventional media — ‘no comment’ is not an option.”
No interviews
Summa’s communications department has declined the Beacon Journal’s repeated requests to make Malone available for an interview.
At least two doctors who voted no-confidence in Malone and his leadership at a physician meeting last Thursday said the memo from the CEO comes too late.
“There’s too much of a systemic problem,” said Dr. Gary Pinta, an internal medicine physician who is president of Pioneer Physician Network, a group of 39 doctors. Pinta’s group submitted a letter of no-confidence to the board. Pinta also is an investor in Western Reserve Hospital, which has been in a protracted legal battle with Summa.
“We would like to patch things up with the hospital; we just can’t with the current administration,” Pinta said. He estimates that he refers half of his patients to Summa Akron City Hospital. “He [Malone] doesn’t want to meet face-to-face. You can’t create a war with a big part of your hospital.”
Doctors who are supportive of Malone said they believed the memo was good, but they didn’t think it would change the minds of physicians with conflicts of interest who aren’t supporting Malone.
Difficult decisions
“I think it’s a good effort. … Until emotions calm down, I don’t believe it’s certainly a magic bullet,” said Dr. Robert Donahue, a Summa anesthesiologist for 34 years. Donahue’s group recently received a one-year extension on its contract with Summa and is in negotiations.
Donahue said he doesn’t believe the replacement or resignation of Malone would change anything and that the next person would also make the same hard decisions.
Dr. Tom Mark, an anesthesiologist also in Donahue’s group and chair of the Summa anesthesiology department, said Malone’s memo came out after a large meeting Monday afternoon of Summa managers. Mark said the managers did not ask Malone to write the memo.
“There’s what I consider to be a fairly large undercurrent of support for administration,” Mark said.
A letter of no-confidence in Malone and his leadership has been signed by 230 Summa physicians. Additionally, two letters of no confidence were sent to the board on behalf of two large primary care physician groups and signed by their doctors. Also, an online survey link that allows doctors to anonymously say whether they would vote no-confidence has 365 voting no-confidence and 17 voting for Malone as of late Tuesday morning, said Dr. Hitesh Makkar, vice president of the Summa medical staff.
Doctors were mailed postcards to their homes sharing the link to the online survey.
The 365 no-confidence votes so far through the online survey negate the health system’s response that only a “minority” of the 1,100 Summa doctors are upset, Makkar said. Doctors have said about half of the 1,100 physicians are not actively on the Summa campuses.
Makkar, a pulmonary critical care and sleep doctor, is part of another independent physician group whose contract was not renewed as of Thursday.
Mark said he was not going to fill out the survey link and neither would his wife, a Summa dermatologist. Mark said he believed there were no checks and balances to prove who was filling out the survey.
Staff writer Amanda Garrett contributed to this report. Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her @blinfisherABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/BettyLinFisherABJ and see all her stories at www.ohio.com/betty