Skip to main content
Relenting after backlash from medical providers and lawmakers, PeaceHealth, a Vancouver, Wash.-based health system with a major presence around Eugene, said Wednesday it would abandon its plans to outsource staffing at its Lane County emergency departments to an out-of-state firm.
The announcement appears, at least for now, to resolve a bitter, months-long battle between the hospital system and its longtime contractor, Eugene Emergency Physicians.
The saga began when PeaceHealth said it would end its contract with the physicians-run group later this year and staff three area emergency departments—including the large Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend—instead through Atlanta-based company called ApolloMD.
In protests, the press and ultimately in court, incensed doctors and their allies alleged the move would run afoul Oregon’s newly-bolstered corporate practice of medicine law, which is supposed to limit the encroachment in medical settings of business interests—or business interests with a medical professional front.
Now, with PeaceHealth’s announcement that it would change course, the architects of that law have declared victory.
“Today’s decision is a watershed moment for our state,” said House Majority Leader Ben Bowman (D-Tigard) in a written statement. “After a decades-long trend of corporatization in healthcare, we are now moving in the opposite direction—back to physician-directed, patient-centered healthcare. Less than a year after it passed, Oregon’s law worked.”
The news comes after days of hearings in federal court over a lawsuit arguing the ApolloMD contract would violate the law in question, Senate Bill 951, which passed in 2025. Reports from Lookout-Eugene Springfield and others indicate U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai, citing the Oregon law, looked skeptically on PeaceHealth’s planned outsourcing arrangement.
In any event, that litigation appears paused for now as the parties seek to settle. In its news release Wednesday, PeaceHealth said it has agreed with EEP to “reset the approach to Emergency Department Physicians services. We have reengaged in constructive discussions and are working jointly to define a path forward that best supports high-quality, reliable care for patients across Lane County.”
The health system said talks with EEP would continue in the coming days. Still, the conflict has left many embittered.
“PeaceHealth’s decision to reverse course is not an act of leadership, it is a retreat,” the Oregon Nurses Association said in a written statement. “Health executives were forced to back down thanks to lawsuits, pressure from elected leaders, and an unprecedented show of solidarity from thousands of nurses, doctors, caregivers, and community members who stood together to hold PeaceHealth accountable and stop out-of-state corporations from controlling our care.”
