How patient safety became the rallying cry

Welcome and thank you for your interest. My goals in creating this site are to make the general public of Monterey County aware of how and why CHOMP/Montage Health became a Unionized hospital, as well as open up a discussion on the CHOMP/Montage Health system and why it is all we have. I want to share my experience and observations of how repeated patient safety concerns were, and continue to be ignored, and how a callous administration places profit over patient. I think the community deserves to know why CHOMP/Montage Health is the most expensive hospital in the state, as well. This also makes it one of the most expensive hospitals in the country, and theoretically, one of the most expensive in the world. I will provide as much data and links to pertinent news articles as I can gather, updating as they come my way. I will include my personal experiences here and hopefully, as more people feel comfortable confronting the Montage Health Goliath, will want their stories told as well. I ask you to please keep one thing in mind though, that I am a Cath Lab nurse, not a journalist, and hopefully that’ll make this an easier read.

First, let me introduce myself. Inside the hospital I’m known as CathLab Ken, but to CFO Matt Morgan and CEO Dr Steven Packer, I was affectionately called “Top 10 Ken,” reflecting upon a 2018 “Employee of the Year” nomination. Currently I am employed as a Registered Nurse at Montage Tyler Heart Institute’s Cardiac Cath lab and Electrophysiology (EP) department. With my teacher wife and twin boys in tow, we left Texas in 2010 in search of a different place to raise our family, first landing in PG but eventually settling down in Carmel. I arrived here as a traveling RN and we immediately fell in love with the community and soon decided this was the place we wanted our kids to grow up.

Now, the notion of forming a Union at CHOMP/Montage Health was not new and had been “attempted” several times in the past. And when I say “attempted,” I mean a water-cooler conversation when no one was looking, by a few deeply concerned, pro-patient RN’s, who all bore witness to the mistreatment of both patients and staff. Unfortunately, it never gained traction or got off the ground. Once administration got word of such discussions, they ruled with a heavy hand and used classic bullying and intimidation tactics to put the fear of termination in the thoughts of employees. Keep in mind that nurses weren't looking for a Union as a way to increase their pay and benefits or other personal gains, but as an avenue to draw accountability to what they saw as patient safety deficiencies and how the Ivory Tower of CHOMP/Montage Health leadership repeatedly ignored their concerns. Even with several wrongful termination judgments against them, CHOMP/Montage Health continues to rule with an iron fist. But all that does is strengthen us. First one person stood up…then another…then another. All of a sudden, the fear was gone. Next thing ya know…Union.

The biggest bully and offender, in my opinion, is Vice President/ Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), Deb Sober, RN. Deb rose to power as CNO, first as Director of ICU, then eventually as Director of Tyler Heart Institute, which became available when the founding director dared to stand up for his staff. Administration had just decided to illegally withhold the call pay from Cath Lab employees, to the tune of over $50k/yr for some, but mandate we be available for emergencies anyway. Don’t like it we were told? There was the door. He was verbally and emotionally abused by then CNO Terrell Lowe, until he could take no more. In 2013, he unceremoniously departed and went on to build amazing programs in Hawaii and the Bay Area, earning awards along the way. By 2017, Tyler Heart was on their 5th director, looking for #6 when I suggested to Sober we consider hiring Mike again because he is a true leader and a program builder, which is exactly what we were trying to do…”Absolutely not!” was her response. The hand went up and it was end of discussion. Any further push was to risk a slamming of the briefcase and storming out of the room. Mind you we were in the midst of our first structural heart program, and it wasn’t looking good. Eventually that program was shuttered by CDPH and thanks to Sober, we stumbled through three more directors, and didn’t need to. All because her ego wouldn’t allow it. Thankfully, Mike is still a part of the community in Salinas. Since being appointed CNO, Tyler Heart has suffered through eight (8) different Directors total. A highly paid position as evidenced on the financial page. And our current #8 is holding on by a thread. With January ‘26’s landslide Union vote, nearly 75% of her subordinates agreed that it’s time for a change. In the recent “Stiver vs CHOMP/Montage Health” wrongful termination lawsuit, Ms Sober was identified as a Montage Officer by the courts and labeled as, “Malicious, Oppressive and Fraudulent.” The very same court proceedings identified other Montage Officers guilty of the same behavior as the CNO. Most notably was VP/Chief People Officer Greg Smorzewski, formerly Director of Human Resources and VP/ Chief Financial Officer Matt Morgan. Dr Packer was conveniently out of the country at the time and unable to testify.

I am a patient advocate first and foremost. Your family is my family. It is ingrained in our fiber as nurses that if you see something, you say something. It is our duty to speak up. Current CEO Dr Mike McDermott preaches this concept in his monthly Town Hall meetings, where he sits behind his teleprompter and encourages his staff to be patient safety ambassadors and to give him a chance. But in my tenure here, suggesting that anyone in administration be held accountable for anything resembling patient safety, usually places a target on that individuals back. As an example, I have documented the unsanitary conditions within my own department and witnessed my annual performance evaluation plummet for the effort. Hospital related infections continue to be a major issue and a direct cause for repeated visits and extended hospitalization, so therefore should be prioritized. While our Leapfrog Safety Scores have consistently been below average at a grade of “C” in recent years, our fellow Monterey County hospitals have scored perfect “A’s.” I don’t hold much hope for improvement from our new CEO, as Dr McDermott’s previous employer, Mary Washington Hospital in Virginia, received a Leapfrog Safety Report of “D” prior to his departure.

How we got here:

While this may seem that I am targeting the CNO, in actuality, the entire CHOMP/Montage Health administration and Board of Directors are complicit as I have included them in the documentation of my safety concerns over several years. Among those concerns are:

1) The lack of appropriate cleaning procedures in the Hybrid Cath Lab/Operating Room (OR) suites. According to AORN standards (the professional organization for professional surgical nursing), rooms are to be Terminally Cleaned daily, meaning every surface in the entire room is disinfected and wiped clean, along with the floor. It is a common occurrence to arrive at 7 am and find it the way it was left the day before, with dried blood on the floors and tables, and trash cans full or overflowing.

2) The sterile hallways leading to the surgical suites are largely unregulated and open to the public. These are direct corridors to the OR rooms and provide an open highway for pathogens.

3) The on-call team, whose responsibility is to cover emergent cases after hours and weekends, primarily heart attack and stroke cases, is often stuck working late on routine, scheduled procedures. And when the emergency comes in, and it does happen despite what admin claims, it is often chaotic and disorganized, and plainly said can be a shitshow. There’s generally not a staffing or response plan for dealing with these situations, so there is definitely not a backup plan when things go south. Our solution to create a 2nd on-call team or provide an alternate schedule, naturally costing more money, was met with a hard “NO”. Two things I’ve learned in my tenure here are A) the bonuses of administrators, who make these critical decisions, are directly tied to the profit margin of their respective departments and B) CHOMP is reactive, not proactive. They would rather spend resources covering up mistakes than making expensive corrections. Closing the barn door after the cows are out.

4) The elimination of key positions of Certified Nurses Assistants, CNA’s, in order to fit within the new budget and cut expenses. CHOMP/Montage Health’s fall rate is way above industry standards so to cover their tracks, Sober announced her plan to “put the nurse back to bedside.” This was her justification for making the cuts to CNA’s. A nurses job is tough enough. Profit over patient no more!

Transparency and accountability are also my missions here. I want to deep dive into why pre-Montage CHOMP and the current model are so vastly different. Also on the table for discussion is the shell game that is CHOMP/Montage Health and how they manipulate that relationship to suit their legal and financial needs.

These are just a select few of the multitude of reasons why CHOMP/Montage Health finds itself now battling the Union. Throughout the entire Union campaign, administration had blatantly violated NLRB laws at the cost of over $2 million. Think of how many CNA’s that would cover. Administrative accountability is way overdue and hopefully this all sparks some conversations. Patients, families, and staff of the MontereyPeninsula and Monterey County deserve so much better. It’s time for some changes. It’s time to “do the right thang!”