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Doctors say hospital leadership dismissed allegations that the chief hospital executive was overstepping his license to weigh in on clinical decisions. After that, PeaceHealth officials launched a process to find a new provider for its emergency departments.
This story has been updated with comments from PeaceHealth.
Representatives of hospital doctors and local elected officials on Friday, April 10, called for accountability and the reversal of recent contracting decisions regarding the emergency department at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.
PeaceHealth placed Jim McGovern, chief hospital executive for its Oregon network, on leave Thursday, following allegations he worked outside of his administrative scope and tried to influence the emergency care of patients.
Eugene Emergency Physicians, a local group of doctors that has provided services to PeaceHealth emergency departments in Lane County for 35 years, reported the allegations about McGovern’s actions to PeaceHealth’s executive leadership, including CEO Sarah Ness.
RiverBend Chief of Staff Dr. William Emerson and the hospital’s Medical Executive Committee say PeaceHealth executives were “dismissive” of the allegations before initiating a procurement process to search for other companies to staff the emergency departments.
The Medical Executive Committee is a peer-nominated group of physicians and chairs of departments who meet with executive leadership over various issues on behalf of the broader staff. Twenty physicians, including Emerson, and two advanced practice clinicians, all of whom work on PeaceHealth’s medical staff, are on the committee.
Emerson said Friday the request-for-proposal process leading to the selection of Atlanta-based ApolloMD in February was “irreconcilably compromised.”
That concern was echoed by local political leaders such as U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, who said PeaceHealth needs to “question every action that Mr. McGovern made as CEO, because again, it doesn’t seem like patient safety really was at the forefront of why his decisions were made.”
Meanwhile, other elected officials, including state Reps. Lisa Fragala and Nancy Nathanson, in a joint statement on Friday, called for accountability and demanded clear answers about how many patients may have been affected. The two Eugene Democrats say it shows the need for stronger regulation of hospital executive-level decisions that can interfere with medical care.
All three called for the reinstatement of Eugene Emergency Physicians as service providers to PeaceHealth’s emergency department at RiverBend in Springfield, as well as to the emergency rooms at PeaceHealth hospitals in Cottage Grove and Florence.
In a statement, PeaceHealth spokesperson Jim Murez said a “multi-disciplinary team of leaders” made the decision to change to a different emergency physician management company with a thorough process, and “it was never a decision made by one individual.”
McGovern has not returned calls for comment.
How we got here
In February, PeaceHealth announced plans to contract with Atlanta-based ApolloMD instead of Eugene Emergency Physicians — also known as EEP — for emergency care at the three hospitals.
Around the time of the announcement, McGovern and Chief Medical Officer Kim Ruscher tried to assure its nearly 400 medical staff and the public that ending EEP’s contract was part of a standard request for proposals, a procurement process inviting groups to submit bids outlining their services.
“To put it bluntly, Eugene Emergency Physicians leadership fully participated in a competitive process and didn’t earn the contract,” McGovern wrote in a guest column published Feb. 19 in Lookout Eugene-Springfield.
His argument in that piece — and in a follow-up interview conducted by two Lookout reporters on Feb. 27 — broadly touched on improving services and patient satisfaction. When Lookout Eugene-Springfield asked if the contract decision was personal, he said, “no.”
“It’s not. I have a deep respect for the physicians,” he said. “We’ve said repeatedly, and we mean it, we hope many of them stay. This is not a move about firing the physicians, getting rid of the physicians.”
Meanwhile, all 41 medical professionals at EEP had signed a pledge to not work for ApolloMD for at least 90 days after the EEP contract ended in June. The doctors mentioned patient safety and their own safety, but with limited detail.
Safety concerns in ‘fear of retaliation’
In an interview Friday with Lookout Eugene-Springfield, Emerson, the RiverBend chief of staff, explained that in the last month, details of the accusations against McGovern came to light when more than 300 pages of emails between EEP and McGovern were filed with the Medical Executive Committee.
The paper trail dates back to 2023, when the PeaceHealth’s University District emergency room in Eugene closed and RiverBend absorbed its cases into the already heavy load at RiverBend.
According to those documents, which Lookout received and authenticated, an EEP physician brought concerns to Ness and Ruscher late last year.
“The emergency department leadership escalated serious concerns relating to patient safety and behavior of Dr. McGovern. And that email to system leadership was sent essentially at the end of September,” Emerson said Friday.
“We know that at some point in the next three weeks, Dr. McGovern had obtained that email and called EEP in to tell them that it wasn’t appreciated, essentially, so we have serious concerns that a culture of safety is not being upheld — because if physicians are not able to escalate serious patient safety concerns appropriately without fear of retaliation, then we do not have a culture of safety in the hospital.”
Emerson said McGovern may have accessed information and charts of hundreds of patients.
The Medical Executive Committee is not making a legal determination if McGovern violated the state’s Medical Practice Act by practicing medicine without a license. In certain serious cases, practicing medicine without a license is a class C felony, which can carry up to five years in prison.
The committee plans to file a formal complaint with the Oregon Medical Board in the coming weeks.
Murez, the PeaceHealth spokesperson, said: “We have received those concerns and they are part of a comprehensive review which is underway.”
‘He felt that nobody could stop him’
In an interview Friday with Lookout Eugene-Springfield, Hoyle said PeaceHealth’s plans to shift away from EEP are concerning and come amid rising needs for emergency medical services, such as summertime accidents and wildfire season.
“How are you going to have people travel here in the middle of an emergency, making this transition without any overlap at all, without any plan?” said Hoyle, the Democrat who represents Oregon’s 4th Congressional District, which includes Lane County. “It didn’t make sense.”
Hoyle was “deeply concerned” about the reasons PeaceHealth gave for making the switch in its emergency departments, “because it did seem very personal for Jim McGovern.”
Hoyle said PeaceHealth’s status as the only Level 2 trauma hospital between Corvallis and Crescent City, California, makes its regional role vital. Hoyle said the news of PeaceHealth’s change came as a surprise to her.
“Normally, PeaceHealth reaches out to us if they’re going to make changes, like with the UD (University District) move,” Hoyle said. “We didn’t hear from them. And (McGovern’s) response was, ‘I’ll make sure to reach out and let you know the next time I plan to mess with your community.’”
Hoyle said McGovern appeared determined to make the change.
“It was clear that he felt that nobody could stop him from making this change, and he was untouchable,” Hoyle said. “So when we look at the fact that this could very well be an action that was taken in retaliation for emergency room physicians speaking up about him operating without a license in a way that affected patient care and patient safety — that is serious enough that we are asking PeaceHealth to slow down this RFP process and really look into why this change was made.”
State lawmakers echoed those concerns, calling the allegations troubling and pushing for more details. Before McGovern was put on leave, lawmakers warned the planned switch to ApolloMD may be in conflict with Oregon laws aimed at reining in corporate influence over medical care decisions.
“This situation highlights a pattern of instability and lack of communication that has worried both providers and patients in our community, and is exactly why we are trying to separate accountants and attorneys and administrators from the responsibility for patient care,” Nathanson, said in a statement. “We need clear answers about what happened, how many patients may have been affected, and what safeguards will be put in place moving forward.”
The development also is prompting calls for more oversight of hospital executive decisions and how they can impact patient safety.
“Patients and frontline providers must be able to trust that medical decisions are being made by appropriately licensed professionals,” Fragala said. “These allegations are deeply concerning, and they reinforce why we’ve been pushing for greater transparency and adherence to Oregon’s patient-protection laws.”
Oregon House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, D-Tigard, said the community deserves answers. Bowman was the chief sponsor of Senate Bill 951, which state lawmakers passed in 2025 to close a loophole that allows private equity firms and corporations to appear compliant by naming physicians — sometimes with little or no authority — as practice owners even as the corporations maintain control behind the scenes.
“This revelation raises alarming questions about PeaceHealth’s decision to drop Eugene Emergency Physicians (EEP) and replace them with ApolloMD,” he said in a statement. “Was it retaliation for EEP doctors not complying with medical directives from unlicensed administrators? What conversations did Mr. McGovern have with ApolloMD about his role in medical decision-making? While we wait for ApolloMD to produce answers to legislative leaders’ questions about their governance model and contractual arrangements, we now have more questions that the community deserves answers to.”
What’s next?
PeaceHealth officials have said the organization is continuing with its plans to transition to ApolloMD — via Lane Emergency Physicians, a new practice being established by PeaceHealth and ApolloMD — to provide emergency department services in Springfield, Cottage Grove and Florence.
EEP has asked a federal judge to temporarily block the transition, citing Senate Bill 951.
Lawmakers and others are worried that if courts rule that the business arrangement is illegal, emergency department services throughout the county could be severely curtailed if ApolloMD doctors have to step away without a ready replacement.
Credit: Ashli Blow / Lookout Eugene-Springfield
