PeaceHealth (OR) hospital doctors sound alarm

The number of hospitalists treating patients at PeaceHealth's Sacred Heart Medical Centers in Springfield and Eugene has fallen to dangerously low levels at a time of peak demand, local hospitalists say. There are far fewer hospitalists — doctors who care for patients in the hospital around the clock — at the Sacred Heart hospitals than there were last summer, Sacred Heart hospitalists say. The hospitalists' criticism comes on top of complaints from Sacred Heart nurses, who have said a shortage of nurses is putting patients at risk. "We're very concerned about patient safety. That's our No. 1 goal to ensure that," said Dr. Brittany Ellison, a hospitalist at Sacred Heart and communications director for the recently formed Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association — the first hospitalist union in the United States.