Contracted emergency doctors at Ascension St. John vote to unionize

A group of 43 healthcare workers at the Ascension St. John Emergency Department have voted to unionize, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

The union includes doctors, advanced practice clinicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners.

The group petitioned the national labor board in early May and held a secret ballot election by mail in June, according to documents filed by the board. A total of 39 ballots were cast, one of which was declared void and seven others challenged, according to the NLRB. The other 31 were all in favor of unionizing.

The Ascension St. John Emergency Department is managed and staffed by TeamHealth, a private physicians and hospital management company based in Tennessee.

"Team Health physicians are not employees of St. John Hospital," Ascension spokesman Nick Ragone said Thursday. "We respect their right to choose to be represented by a union in their relationship with TeamHealth."

TeamHealth has been notified by the NLRB that the emergency department clinicians at St. John Hospital in Detroit voted for union representation on Tuesday, TeamHealth spokesman Josh Hopson said. Patients and the community will see no impact as a result of the vote, Hopson said.

"TeamHealth’s focus remains working with our hospital partners on serving patients and supporting our frontline clinicians," Hopson said. "For more than 40 years, TeamHealth has ensured that each of our clinicians has the resources available to deliver the highest quality care to patients. The outcome of the election does not change that commitment."

Staffing issues have led to long wait times in the emergency department, sometimes exceeding 12 hours, Emergency Department physician Michelle Wiener said.

"If the nurses are short, what happens is even if there are 50 people sitting in the waiting room, half of the ER's closed down and we can't see those patients," Wiener said. "So we're trying to go out into the waiting room and just put a patch on the problem. And then Team Health sees that we're seeing less patients per hour so their solution to that problem is to decrease the physician staffing."

Better communication is needed on all fronts, she said.

"A lot of the issues we were having come from just a lack of communication between the hospital and Team Health and us," Wiener said. "All of us just want to get back to what we love to do, which is patient care."

Ascension St. John is the site of several residency programs, including one in emergency medicine. Physicians' ability to teach the residents is heavily affected by staffing levels, Wiener said. She hopes the issues can get resolved quickly and help reduce physician burnout.

"If we, as physicians, have less stress, we're less burned out," Wiener said. "It allows us to take care of patients better."

TeamHealth said the company is committed to working with the union and bargaining in good faith on issues that are within the company's control, Hopson said.

hmackay@detroitnews.com