PORT ANGELES — Olympic Medical Center CEO Mike Glenn promised Wednesday to initiate “discussion-starter possible solutions” to the Virginia Mason clinic crisis and to introduce them soon to the public.
He declined, however, to disclose them immediately.
The clinic’s Seattle-based parent says it will close its Port Angeles operation by March 31, 2006, possibly leaving thousands of patients looking for primary-care physicians.
“We need to initiate some path to closure,” Glenn told Olympic Medical Center commissioners, adding that discussions continue with Virginia Mason at the corporate and local levels.
‘Clear call for action’
Glenn said he had heard “a clear call for action” at Saturday’s community forum on the clinic’s impending closure.
He called the hearing, attended by more than 100 people, “very helpful as we continue to seek information and transform that into some possibilities as we move forward.”
After the Wednesday meeting, Glenn said Olympic Medical Center would discuss “frameworks for physician-practice models” with Virginia Mason’s 21 health-care providers.
Those models won’t include the medical center subsidizing their practices, however.
As Commissioner Jorgen Quistgaard pointed out, that practice is forbidden by Washington law.
Olympic Medical Center could hire Virginia Mason doctors, however, under its Olympic Medical Physicians operating division.
Some physicians also could be employed by the Lower Elwha or Jamestown S’Klallam tribal clinics.
