A lender put a rural hospital’s patient monitors on “service hold” overnight over a late payment
For nine hours, monitors at a small hospital showed a service message instead of patients’ vital signs while its account with Wardmore Health Capital was in dispute. Wardmore says no patients were adversely affected.
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NASHVILLE — At 9:40 p.m. on Aug. 14, the patient monitors at a small rural hospital stopped showing heart rates and oxygen levels. In their place, nurses said, each screen showed a short message saying the equipment was in service hold.
Service hold is a status that Wardmore Health Capital, a Nashville company that finances intensive-care equipment for hospitals, can switch on remotely when a hospital falls behind on its payments. The hospital had been in a dispute with Wardmore over its account, according to two people familiar with it. The hold was released at 6:40 the next morning.
Two nurses who were on duty that night described what happened to The Overseen. With the monitors held, they said, staff took blood pressures, pulses and oxygen readings by hand, going from bed to bed through the night, while the hospital’s administrators tried to reach someone at Wardmore. Neither nurse wanted to be named; both said they still work at the hospital. The Overseen is not naming the hospital at the request of staff who fear for its finances.
“You learn to count a pulse in nursing school,” one said. “You don’t expect to do it for nine hours because of a bill.”
In a statement on Aug. 15, Wardmore said that for nine hours monitoring equipment at a hospital it serves had been in service hold, and that no patients were adversely affected. It said monitoring equipment in use at the bedside will not be placed in service hold, and that it was reviewing what happened with the hospital.
Wardmore introduced the program behind the hold, Continuity Assurance, in 2021, offering lower rates and deposits to hospitals that enroll their equipment. Enrolled machines connect to Wardmore’s operations center, through the manufacturer’s remote-service network or through a gateway that Wardmore installs. Many of its customers are rural and independent hospitals; the company says its Rural Hospital Program has served more than 200 of them since 2018.
The office of the state attorney general has asked Wardmore for information about the hold, according to a person familiar with the inquiry. Wardmore did not respond to questions about the inquiry or about how many other hospitals have had equipment placed in service hold.
Correction, : An earlier version of this story gave the time the hold was released as 6:30 a.m. It was 6:40 a.m.