Star Tribune
Doctors with Minnesota’s Allina Health vote to unionize
Allina Health doctors have voted to unionize by a wide margin, after a vote closed this week.
The vote announced Friday, 325 for to 200 against, is only the beginning of the unionization effort. But members — doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants — say they hope their union could advocate for more support that would lead to better patient care.
“We just needed a seat at the table to be part of the decisionmaking,” said Beth Gunhus, a nurse practitioner who works out of a Blaine clinic and was one of the lead organizers.
In a statement, Allina Health said they appreciated their providers.
“While we are disappointed in the decision by some of our providers to be represented by a union, we remain committed to our ongoing work to create a culture where all employees feel supported and valued,” the statement read. “Our focus now is on moving forward to ensure the best interests of our employees, patients and the communities we serve.”
The physician-led organizing campaign is the second involving Allina. About 150 inpatient doctors at Allina’s Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids took the initial steps to unionize in March. Both efforts involve the Doctors Council, a New York-based affiliate of the Service Employees International Union.
The Allina group would become the largest private-sector doctors union, according to Joe Crane, national organizing director for the Doctors Council.
Gunhus said organizing the archipelago of smaller Allina clinics has laid bare systemwide difficulties, especially around support staffing levels. Those problems predate the pandemic, but she said COVID made it clear for her that she needed to advocate for changes.
“If you look at what happened during COVID, our profession rose to the occasion and kind of committed a miracle,” she said. “Now it feels like we don’t have any support or any of the things we need to go back to day-to-day living.”
The vote must be certified by the National Labor Relations Board and Allina would have to recognize the union before bargaining on a contract could begin. But Crane hoped bargaining on an initial contract could begin as soon as November.
“We just won back a voice we felt we had lost,” said Nick VenOsdel, a Hastings pediatrician. Doctors have not had much recourse to raise concerns, he said, like a pileup of administrative work that takes doctors away from patients. He hopes the vote will be the beginning of broader changes in the health care system that put more weight on the decisions doctors and patients make together, and not on insurance companies and health systems.
“I hope we can make things better in our health care system and in our state,” VenOsdel said.
Star Tribune staff writer Jeremy Olson contributed to this report.
A St. Paul man who was in critical condition following a fire last week at his home in the Battle Creek neighborhood has died, marking the city’s eighth fire death this year.
According to a news release from the St. Paul Fire Department, the man was found unconscious in the basement of a house on Nelson Street early in the morning of Oct. 17, after fire crews had extinguished a fire at the two-story residence. Paramedics undertook life-saving measures before taking him to the hospital.
No one else was injured in the fire, which was found to have been accidental and started in the engine of a car parked in the tuck-under garage. The fire was confined to the garage, but heavy smoke filled the house. Smoke detectors enabled others in the house to exit safely, officials said.
That hasn’t ebbed with Simpli-Fi. The startup incorporated in 2018 as a company based out of Florida that integrated technology systems together in commercial buildings to work as a single unit. But business sputtered when the COVID-19 pandemic began, and Campbell had to make staff cuts to his team of 16 employees. He called it one of “the worst times” of his life.
“But during that time is where we made a pivot,” Campbell said.
He set out to find a new technology, eventually spotting NASA’s electronic nose thanks to Brown Venture Group, a St. Paul based firm that supports Black, Latino and Indigenous tech startups. Campbell’s brother, Paul Campbell, is a partner at the firm but said he recused himself from the investment decision.
Chris Campbell was skeptical of the electronic nose’s capabilities at first but sprung for a commercialization license after spending a year researching the technology. By this past summer, he had moved the company to Minnesota and specifically the Osborne building because both are “known for device creation,” he said.
Simpli-Fi’s sensor packs some of the science of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry — which require huge machines — into a sensor the size of a dime, Campbell said. Using nanotubes, the sensor picks up metabolic qualities in the air and breath, he said.
For now, the company is focused on the C. diff-sensing Provectus Canary device, which scans the air around a hospital patient to detect the bacteria that causes the infection, which has gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea. The company is working toward the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval for using the sensor to detect various diseases.
A Minneapolis man was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for murdering his neighbor in their North Side apartment building last year.
Walter Lee Hill, 59, had pleaded guilty on Monday to second-degree intentional murder. He will get credit for having served nearly a year in jail.
Police were called to the Gateway Lofts on W. Broadway Avenue last November on a report that someone was shot. Officers found Donald Edmondson, 60, dead on the floor of his apartment with a gunshot wound to the chest.
A video camera in the hallway showed Hill knocking on Edmondson’s door, reaching into his sweatshirt pocket and firing his gun once. Hill then left in his Lexus, which officers found near Elliot Park downtown.
They spotted Hill walking nearby, asked for his ID and arrested him when he said something to the effect that they had the right guy.
A witness told police they saw Hill shoot Edmondson, and another said there had been an ongoing dispute between the two. Two days before the murder, Hill had called police because he believed neighbors were breaking into his apartment.
In a statement, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Edmondson “should still be alive. A violent act committed with such disregard by Mr. Hill has taken him from his family. This sentence delivers accountability and protects our community, and I hope it brings some measure of peace to Mr. Edmondson’s loved ones as they attempt to move forward with their lives.”
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