When Seattle-based Virginia Mason Medical Center took over the locally run Port Angeles Clinic in 1995, its administration pledged not to duplicate services already available on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Virginia Mason said it only wished to give patients access to technology, computerized record-keeping and specialized services in Seattle that were unavailable locally.
As an advertisement for Virginia Mason’s two clinics in Port Angeles and Sequim says, “Imagine hundreds of the best minds in medicine working for you.”
But NOMO, an organization of about 25 independent physicians and specialists who don’t work on salary for the Virginia Mason clinics, claim a different pattern has emerged — and say it’s damaging to Port Angeles, Sequim and the rest of the North Olympic Peninsula.
NOMO — North Olympic Medical Options — is convinced Virginia Mason is attempting to monopolize the Peninsula’s medical services.
For the complete story see Sunday’s Peninsula Daily News, on sale in Clallam and Jefferson counties.
