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HOME > ABOUT > PRESS > HOSPITAL JPA SHOWS SIGNS OF PROGRESS
Article published - February 28, 2008
Credit: SONOMA NEWS
Hospital JPA shows signs of progress
By Emily Charrier
North Bay district hospitals, including Sonoma Valley Hospital, are starting to see some positive results from joining forces last year.
During Wednesday's meeting of the Sonoma Valley Health Care District, boardmembers got an in-depth update on the progress of the joint powers agreement, which includes steps towards linking the information technology (IT) servers at all hospitals and securing better employee benefit packages. In 2007, Sonoma Valley Hospital was responsible for launching the joint powers agreement that allowed the Sonoma Health Care District, the Palm Drive Hospital District, the North Sonoma County Hospital District and the Mendocino Coast District Hospital to work cooperatively as the legal entity the Northern California Health Care Authority. For years, district hospitals have fought a David and Goliath battle with insurance companies. District hospitals, hindered with smaller patient volumes, have always struggled to receive the same reimbursement rates that larger hospitals such as Sutter and Santa Rosa Memorial easily obtain.
By joining together, the smaller district hospitals will now have more negotiating strength when it comes to seeking reimbursement rates from insurance companies. The agreement also allows the smaller district hospitals to work together, sharing everything from people costs to equipment. In these times when most community-owned hospitals teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, the joint powers agreement is an innovative way to improve finances at a number of facilities. In addition to the joint powers agreement, in November organizers created the nonprofit North Coast Integrated Health, a management service that will legally allow the hospitals to partner with health-care clinics, physician groups and other health-care providers (only district hospitals are legally allowed to join the Northern California Health Care Authority). This means that facilities including the Sonoma Valley Community Health Center will also benefit from this arrangement. Although the organization is only officially about six months old, the benefits from the program are already becoming apparent. Using experts from each hospital, organizers have created six task forces to focus on specific goals of the facilities.
The Information Technology Task Force is headed by Fe Sendaydiego, IT manager at Sonoma Valley Hospital. The task force is strategizing methods to link the computer system at all of the hospitals, meaning a patients' records could be accessed at any of the facilities via electronic medical record, while also allowing the facilities to save software and equipment costs. The new computer system would also allow the hospitals to link with outside laboratories and medical groups. Sonoma Valley Hospital, like many of the hospitals in the agreement, is in desperate need of an upgrade in the IT system, but have not had the means to correct the problems. Last week the task force sent off a grant application for $678,000 from the PacifiCare/ United Foundation, which if approved will make the IT system the first major project of the Northern California Health Care Authority.
In addition to the IT systems, another task force is looking into ways to save dollars on employee benefits and insurance. Each hospital has its own employee benefits package, meaning each hospital must negotiate benefit rates based on the number of employees in the facility. However, the more employees, the better the rates that are available for the facilities. "The thought here was to approach the health plans with 500 employees instead of 100 or so employees," said Geza Kadar, legal counsel and consultant for the two organizations. Task forces have also been organized to look at joint purchasing of supplies and equipment, physicians recruitment and retention and joint contracting with Medicare and MediCal.
"Many forms of cooperation are happening at many different levels," said Dr. Dick Kirk, board chair. The authority is looking for even more ways to impact the community. Officials met with 3rd District Supervisor Tim Smith and Rita Scardaci, director of the Sonoma County Department of Health Services, to discuss the possibility of taking over Sutter's Warrack facility in eastern Santa Rosa. Sutter began to close sections of Warrack in the summer of 2006, making an agreement to sell the 69-bed hospital to Santa Rosa Memorial in early 2007, when Sutter announced plans to close all its facilities in Sonoma County. However, with the recent announcement that Memorial laid off more than 200 employees, officials with the Northern California Health Care Authority were skeptical that Memorial could effectively take over the facility and asked county officials to be considered for the job. "This would give the JPA a community-based, primary-care oriented hospital in the county's largest population bases, Santa Rosa, which has 158,000 residents," Kadar said. "This proposal was warmly received, and Rita Scardaci even complemented our management team as one of the best she has ever worked with."
Authority officials are also reaching out to as many health-care providers as possible. Talks are under way with the Petaluma Health Care District, which originally declined to join but has since expressed new interest in the project. Kirk is also planning to meet with representatives from Marin General Hospital this week. To date, the authority has been completely nonprofit, relying on three major grants totaling $160,000 for operations. Participating hospitals each agreed to give $10,000 to ensure work could continue while organizers wait to receive more grant money. Kadar said the authority is just in its infancy, and there is still a lot of work left to accomplish.
"In a few years, each of our district hospitals will be part of a coordinated system of care, a virtual system that includes our community physicians, our aligned community health centers and other important providers of health services that we need to sustain our hospitals," he said.
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