PORT ANGELES — Insomniacs and sleep apnea sufferers may soon have more services available on the North Olympic Peninsula thanks to Olympic Medical Center’s affiliation with Swedish Medical Center.
Dr. Scott Kennedy, chief medical officer, told OMC commissioners Wednesday the public hospital district has hired a temporary sleep physician from Swedish to work at OMC’s accredited sleep center until a permanent sleep doctor is hired.
OMC has been without its own sleep physician since August.
“We have some active recruitment under way,” Kennedy said in a briefing on the Swedish sleep program. “But we’re also still in the process of considering a contract for recruitment and employment of a physician with Swedish.
“We have a proposed contract in front of us now, and we’re working through some of the issues to come to a resolution with them.”
OMC commissioners unanimously approved a 20-year umbrella agreement with Seattle-based Swedish Medical Center in October. In doing so, OMC became the first member of the Swedish Health Network.
Members of the network will refer patients to Swedish for services they can’t get in their own communities and pay a yearly fee.
In return, Swedish will refer patients back for follow-up care and help its members expand their own clinical services, recruit physicians and provide financial incentives such as buying groups and better technology.
Jefferson Healthcare approved an affiliation with Swedish in November.
Forks Community Hospital will consider approving its own agreement with Swedish on Jan. 24, Chief Executive Officer Camille Scott said.
Separate agreements for things like sleep medicine and electronic medical records will be approved with separate contracts.
If OMC commissioners sign the proposed sleep medicine contract with Swedish, the parties would work together to recruit a sleep doctor to the Peninsula.
The sleep physician would be a Swedish employee. OMC would provide the support staff, billing services and office space in Sequim.
“The landscape of sleep medicine is changing,” Kennedy added. “There is a move towards the direction of doing more of the sleep studies in the outpatient setting, rather than the sleep center setting.”
No action was taken after Kennedy’s briefing.
Meanwhile, Forks Community Hospital officials discussed the potential affiliation with Swedish in a Dec. 20 planning meeting, Scott said.
“We’ve spent a lot of time looking at it,” she said. “My feeling is they [the hospital commissioners] will probably sign the agreement.
“We really want to keep health care strong on the Peninsula.”
Terms of the affiliation between the West End hospital and the Seattle health care giant still are being negotiated.
OMC and Jefferson Healthcare are paying $120,000 and $75,000, respectively, in affiliation fees for the first year.
Scott said Forks Community Hospitals’s fee would be less than the other Peninsula hospitals because it is smaller and its needs are different.
In other news from the OMC meeting, re-elected commissioners John Nutter and Dr. John Miles were sworn in by Port Angeles Attorney Craig Miller.
Nutter, a Port Angeles police officer, and Miles, a retired physician and hospital administrator, defeated their respective challengers by wide margins in the November election.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.