Kirk chosen to kick off JPA

Sonoma’s own Dr. Dick Kirk, chairman of the Sonoma Valley Health Care District Board of Directors, was elected last week as Chairman of the Northern California Healthcare Authority. Sonoma was joined by three other hospitals to make up that body, newly formed at Thursday’s meeting: Palm Drive Hospital in Sebastopol, Healdsburg District Hospital, and Mendocino Coast District Hospital.
Representatives from those districts selected Nancy Dobbs and Irma Cordova of Palm Drive as vice-chair and secretary, respectively, and E.J. Neil of Healdsburg as treasurer. With no dedicated revenue stream, the authority will have to be creative in developing mechanisms for improving health care in its separate markets. The goal, though, is to improve health care throughout the region represented by the four districts.
At a press conference the week before with the hospital’s Safety Net Committee, comprising Kirk, district director Mike Smith, Sonoma Health Center director Patricia Talbot, and physician Clinton Lane, two prospective advantages were stressed: recruiting doctors would be easier into a market much larger than Sonoma Valley alone, and cooperating with local health care centers would improve care for uninsured patients. Another possible advantage would be more effective bargaining for reimbursement rates and equipment purchases.
Carl Gerlach, the Sonoma hospital CEO, told the Sun that he is excited by the possible benefits of the new collective. He noted that a new physical plant in Sonoma is still a number of years off, likening the situation to a young man who knows he is going to inherit his dad’s Mercedes in a few years: “But for now, since it’s all he’s got, he’d best take care of the car he has at the present moment – that’s what we’re doing here, with the current Sonoma Valley Hospital facility we’ve got.”