New collaboration guarantees highest-quality service at Oaklawn’s emergency department

MARSHALL — A new collaboration with the multi-specialty health-care partnership Vituity will guarantee highest-quality service for patients visiting Oaklawn’s emergency department, according to the health-care organizations’ leaders.

The transition was announced in a message in July from Oaklawn President and CEO Gregg Beeg to Oaklawn employees. 

“We believe this relationship will be best for all parties for a seamless, reasonable cost and least disruptive transition while maintaining the exceptional quality Oaklawn is known for in the communities we serve,” Beeg wrote.

Emeryville, California-based Vituity is a partnership among 3,500 physicians and 1,800 advance-practice providers nationwide. The partnership is 100 percent physician-owned and physician-led, featuring a network of 5,000 clinicians who care for more than 8 million patients across 450 practice locations.

“Our partnership with Vituity is the same type of vendor agreement Oaklawn had with our previous service provider, American Physician Partners (APP),” Beeg added. “Under the agreement, Oaklawn contracts with Vituity, which directly employs the physicians and other medical providers who work in our emergency department.”

Vitality began providing professional staffing services at Oaklawn on Tuesday, Aug. 1. The organization also oversees similar services at most Ascension hospitals in Michigan, including Borgess in Kalamazoo as well as Sparrow Health System in Lansing, Beeg said.

In 2018, CEP America, MedAmerica, and MedAmerica Billing Services Inc. — organizations founded in the 1970s — united as Vituity. Since the founding of those original entities in the 1970s, the partnership has grown to provide services ranging from critical care and emergency medicine to psychiatric and telehealth services.

Beeg commended Oaklawn’s senior leadership and Allison Field, D.O., the emergency department’s medical director, for their efforts in securing an agreement with Vituity within a short period in the face of the unanticipated dissolution of APP.

Notification of the financially challenged APP’s dissolution July 31 “put a tremendous burden on all of us to find an organization that can provide the needed staffing in such a short two-week time period,” Beeg said, adding his thanks to those responsible for the successful transition.

Additional information about Vituity is available online at vituity.com and more information about Oaklawn and its services may be found at oaklawnhospital.org.