Wild Rose Community Memorial Hospital Doctors Work in Clinics, Emergency Room
When Chad Voskuil, MD, was finishing his residency at the Fox Valley Family Medicine Residency program in Appleton in 2007, he searched for a position that would allow him the best of both worlds: have a bustling family medicine practice without the demands of being on call.
He found it at Wild Rose Community Memorial Hospital. Just as Dr. Voskuil was entering private practice, Wild Rose was starting a new rotation. The rotation required six physicians trained in hospital, outpatient, and emergency medicine. For Dr. Voskuil, it was ideal.
“When I’m at work, I’m at work. When I’m at home, I’m at home,” he said. “I don’t have to wear a pager. There’s a nice separation there that you don’t always get in medicine.”
Dawn Shuman, Wild Rose’s chief operating officer, developed the innovative schedule in response to the community’s desire for additional access and the hospital’s struggles to find and retain family medicine physicians. In addition, the arrangement allowed the hospital to offer its family medicine physicians a competitive salary and benefit package since it no longer had to pay an independent service to staff its emergency department.
“It’s a novel idea and we have found that it really works,” Shuman said. “A doctor will do two weeks in the clinic and then one week in the hospital and then start over again. It really provides more continuity for patients and the physicians like it, too.”
Michael Staudinger, MD, who started at Wild Rose Hospital in 2006, appreciates how the approach allows him to practice the full scope of family medicine.
“I truly enjoy building relationships with my patients and following up with them as needed. To be able to do all of this and not have the burden of being on call allows me to enjoy life outside of medicine as well,” he said. “It’s a really nice balance of personal and professional life.”
Dr. Voskuil enjoys the variety and challenge of working in both the clinic and hospital setting.
“You do everything in family medicine. When you’re in the ER, it really keeps your skills sharp,” he said. “I also like that I’m able to follow up later in the clinic to see how a patient is doing. When I was a resident, I worked in an ER and you didn’t get much feedback. You treated a patient, but never knew what happened. Now, if I see 15 patients during my shift, three to five of them are my own patients and the others are likely my partners’ patients so I can ask them how the patients are doing.”
If a patient comes in the ER who doesn’t have a regular doctor, Dr. Voskuil can suggest either himself or one of his partners. “If you help someone in the ER, you can tell them to follow up with you later at the clinic and help that patient find a family practitioner to work with so they don’t need to visit the ER, which is a more costly way to treat some health conditions that could be better managed in a clinic setting.”
The community response to the rotation is positive, Shuman said. “Patients have more choice and are really getting more continuity. If they need to go to the ER, it’s likely it will be their own doctor or one of his partners,” she said. “That familiar face is comforting.”
The change also led to higher physician retention rates, which can be a struggle at smaller hospitals, Shuman said.
“Rural practice typically requires significant time commitment. This program eliminates the need for call allowing for better work life balance. We’ve been doing this for six years and have had a great response,” she said. “We are able to keep our physicians, which builds stability in our medical staff and confidence in our services.”
ThedaCare™ is a community health system consisting of seven hospitals: Appleton Medical Center, Theda Clark Medical Center, ThedaCare Medical Center-New London, Shawano Medical Center, and Riverside Medical Center in Waupaca. Community Health Network, which includes Community Memorial Hospital in Berlin, and Wild Rose Memorial Hospital are in the process of affiliating with ThedaCare. ThedaCare also includes ThedaCare Physicians, ThedaCare Behavioral Health, and ThedaCare At Home. ThedaCare is one of the largest employers in Northeast Wisconsin with more than 6,175 employees. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
