The Chief Nursing Officer hired at Effingham County’s hospital was let go from her last position as the facility faced the most severe consequence following a federal investigation: termination of funding. The threats made by the Joint Commission, reports indicate, were in response to ongoing leadership practices that were tied to at least three deaths and upwards of 200 other injuries.
At the center of it all is Denise Kvapil, a woman now employed as the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) at Effingham Health System in Springfield. A CNO is the most senior nursing executive in a healthcare organization and is ensuring quality care and overseeing nursing staff and operations, among other things.
Kvapil was hired in Effingham in July 2025, though neither the hospital’s website nor the social media accounts depict any announcements pertaining to such. The employment was confirmed to TheGeorgiaVirtue by numerous Effingham Health System employees, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation in the workplace. An internal work flow ‘organization chart’ was also provided to TheGeorgiaVirtue by an employee. The image lists Kvapil as the Chief Nursing Officer who reports directly to CEO Fran Witt.
Kvapil has a lengthy career in nursing, having worked in a number of hospitals up and down the east coast. Prior to her hire in Effingham, Kvapil worked at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts. [View her LinkedIn profile here]. Her time at St. Vincent, however, was seemingly anything but positive and ended when a joint commission threatened to revoke Medicaid and Medicare funding after a lengthy investigation.
Leadership of CEO, Kvapil Leads to Federal Investigation
A lack of needed RN staffing, a lack of monitoring that required emergency intervention to prevent deaths, and a lack of supplies and protocols. Those things were among the triggers that prompted nurses at St. Vincent to speak out to leadership as nurses worked skeleton shifts and patient care plummeted. Kvapil, according to nurses, was deemed the architect of the staffing plan.
As the effects of reduced staff began to take hold, roughly five months into Kvapil’s employment, St. Vincent nurses began filing complaints with state and federal agencies, citing dangerous conditions and ‘serious deficiencies in care’ that jeopardized the safety of patients admitted to the hospital. In one example, a new RN with less than three months of experience was assigned thirteen patients. In several other examples, there was no RN to accept incoming ambulance patients, no triage nurse, and no nurse to monitor patients waiting.
Complaints were filed with the state Department of Public Health Division of Healthcare Quality, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Nursing, and the accrediting commission for acute care hospitals. In a seven month period, more than 650 incidents were documented and at least six official complaints were filed against the CEO and Kvapil.
In April 2024, 88% of the nurses employed at St. Vincent signed a petition and presented it to both the hospital CEO and Kvapil, calling for “immediate action to address an ongoing patient safety crisis.” They referred to the leadership by the CEO and Kvapil as ‘punitive management culture.’ They also said the staffing grids forced nurses in nearly every unit to accept unsafe patient assignments and quickly reduced the 800-member nursing workforce to 500 with more than 250 vacancies.
In a press conference about the petition, it was reported that the nursing shortages, created by the CEO and Kvapil, resulted in patients left unattended and unmonitored, without medication on time (or at all), and pushing call buttons while writhing in pain, while some even waited soiled in their own urine and feces.
In some divisions, unlicensed personnel were permitted to oversee an entire unit and in multiple instances, the Emergency Department did not have a nurse assigned to the triage area. One one occasion, five mental health patients were left with “a sitter” and security only for an entire shift.
Nurses and nursing organizations all reported attempts to meet with Kvapil to have ‘meaningful discussions’ on the concerns raised by nurses, but in all, Kvapil attended only one 20-minute meeting. She also reportedly refused to respond to text messages from nurses about the ongoing issues. In a letter to the U.S. Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, nurses wrote that the complaints were “a measure of last resort as the nurses have exercised a good faith effort to alert administration of the danger of these conditions for their patients and themselves.” Three of the nurses who filed complaints with the state were terminated and six were suspended without pay.
Ultimately, an investigation by the MA Department of Public Health (DPH) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) found that “all patients were placed in “immediate jeopardy” for serious harm – meaning they were at risk for serious injury, serious harm, serious impairment or death. The report documented at least three patient deaths attributable to understaffing.
Most damning, it was reported that “deficiencies were so severe and widespread that the agencies “threatened Tenet with termination of CMS funding for all services for patients covered under Medicare and Medicaid.” That accounts for more than 70% of the hospital’s patient population.
When the findings of the investigation were produced, St. Vincent announced shortly thereafter that neither the CEO nor Kvapil would be employed there any longer.
Five months later, she was hired by Effingham Health System ..at a time when the hospital is already dealing with turnover of tenured employees, including but not limited to: the OR Director, the Executive Director of Nursing, the Medical Surge Lead, Emergency Room Lead, Manager of Case Management, and Assistant Director of Nursing for Care Center.
*Kvapil’s exact salary is unclear as Effingham Health System only updates their Top 10 Earners on the financial transparency website on July 1 of each year. Unconfirmed reports have suggested Kvapil is earning a little more than $221k. In 2021, the CNO position at Effingham Health System paid $221,316.02 with ~$13k in additional compensation and another $7,184 in benefits.
**The complete findings from the investigation are available under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). TheGeorgiaVirtue has requested a copy of the report from an entity in Massachusetts and will publish the report when it becomes available.
Boston Globe news coverage on at least two of the understaffing-related deaths
The circumstances surrounding Kvapil’s departure from her previous position only came to light after she had already been hired by Effingham. Had this information been available during the hiring process, it’s unlikely the decision would have moved forward. All standard background checks were completed, professional references were stellar, and prior employment was verified, with no indication of any serious misconduct.
This situation is not a reflection on Effingham, but rather on Kvapil, who chose not to disclose an ongoing investigation. It’s an unfortunate turn of events, and one that Effingham will hopefully be able to navigate while preserving its reputation and upholding the integrity the community expects.