Hospital group meets at Palm Drive

Members of the Northern California Health Care Authority met
Tuesday night at Palm Drive Hospital to discuss Joint Powers
Agreement (JPA) progress and briefly discussed the body’s response
to a proposal by Sutter to build a facility in Santa Rosa.
The JPA has been effective in creating a unified voice in its
opposition to the proposal put forth by Sutter to build a 70-bed
public hospital, with an additional 28-bed surgery unit on the site
of the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa.
In March, the JPA came together to protest the proposal, saying
that it would allow Sutter to cherrypick the most profitable
business, leaving the district hospitals to cover a larger portion
of indigent care in the county.
Last week, Sutter presented a draft of its proposal, but
according to the board’s chair Dr. Dick Kirk from Sonoma Valley
Hospital, the plan wasn’t available to the public until the day of
the meeting and it was woefully short on details.
Members of the JPA who attended the meeting believe the Board of
Supervisors may be on the verge of accepting the draft proposal,
which would put the plan into the CEQA process.
“We need to emphatically tell the Supes not to accept this
proposal,” said Bill Boerum of Sonoma Valley. “We need to say
‘stop.’” Our Supes should not be beholden to outside
organizations.”
There will be a public workshop to accept preliminary analysis
of Sutter’s 2008 Revised Business Plan next Monday, July 20 from 9
a.m. to noon in the Board of Supervisors chambers at 575
Administration Drive, Santa Rosa.
The four member hospitals — Palm Drive, Sonoma Valley,
Healdsburg and Mendocino Coast hospitals — joined forces in
mid-2007 in an attempt to pool resources.
They set the ultimate goal of finding a way to compete with
for-profit hospitals in the county.
The initial vision was for the hospitals to band together in
order to create a medical group loosely modeled after the
now-defunct Health Plan of the Redwoods.
The districts hoped to use the group to address problems with
hiring and retaining physicians and medical staff in a tough local
market, and also find solutions to technology problems each
hospital faces.
But so far, not much progress has been made. Kirk said that of
10 goals laid out by the group, only one and “about half of
another” have been implemented, although he did not elaborate on
what those successes have been.
“We need to find a way to move this body to increase
effectiveness,” Kirk said. “We’re agreeing to things but not
following through.”
The board discussed methods of accountability in order to avoid
“just blowing smoke.”
The JPA has no paid staff, and depends on the chief executives
of each district to implement the board’s decisions, but without
staff those decisions often turn into exercises in futility.
The JPA also briefly discussed the turmoil that Palm Drive
Hospital is experiencing, as CEO James Russell and the hospital’s
Chief Operating Officer Lori Austin are both on administrative
leave pending an investigation into alleged misconduct.
The Palm Drive District Board is under investigation as well,
and in the interim, Dan Smith, board president and hospital
benefactor, is the acting chief executive of the hospital.
Kirk brought up Palm Drive’s troubles to use them as a teachable
moment for all the districts and a way to discuss the role of
boards, which he believes is not to “micromanage or interfere.”
“We can’t be oblivious and pretend there is no stress and
strain,” Kirk said. “What can we do to support and give advice to
each other?”
Palm Drive board representative Frank Mayhew didn’t think it was
an appropriate topic for discussion in that venue, and thought it
was “highly improper” for the JPA board to even bring it up.
But the discussion continued despite Mayhew’s objections.