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Summa's Shift in ER Doctors Stirs Controversy

Dr Jeff Wright of SEA - Summa Emergency Associates
Tim Rudell
/
WKSU
Dr Jeff Wright of SEA - Summa Emergency Associates

After 40 years with the same physicians group to staff its emergency operations, Akron-based Summa Health System has changed contractors. The group that lost the contract held a meeting Monday in Akron.

Dr Jeff Wright of SEA - Summa Emergency Associates
Credit Tim Rudell / WKSU
/
WKSU
Dr Jeff Wright of SEA - Summa Emergency Associates

Summa said last week that it was unable to reach a new contract with Summa Emergency Associates, the independent group of doctors who have staffed its emergency rooms for decades.

Following the meeting of about 200 of its members Monday night, the president of that group, Dr. Jeff Wright, talked about what comes next.

"Our docs would have the opportunity to stay if they choose to.  I don’t think many, if any, of our docs will decide to stay with the new group that is coming in.”  

Wright said Summa Emergency Associates has broad support among doctors who work with the health-care provider. A majority of the system’s medical residents sent a letter to the Akron-based hospital system's board asking for it to review the decision to change. 

The new group of doctors taking over the emergency rooms at Akron City hospital and those in Medina, Green, Barberton and Wadsworth is U.S. Acute Care Solutions of Canton. According to the Beacon Journal, the CEO of that group is Dr. Dominic Bagnoli, who is married to Summa's Chief medical Officer Dr. Vivian von Gruenigen. 

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Tim Rudell
Tim Rudell has worked in broadcasting and news since his student days at Kent State in the late 1960s and early 1970s (when he earned extra money as a stringer for UPI). He began full time in radio news in 1972 in his home town of Canton, OH.