“Hang together or hang alone!” CEO’s message to hospital planning group

The Sonoma Valley Hospital District Strategic Planning Committee met Wednesday evening to hear ideas and organize the elements of a plan for affiliation to present to the Joint Powers Authority next month.
Richard Fogg asked Dick Kirk, board chair of the Sonoma Valley Health Care District, what he wanted from the Strategic Planning Committee in order to make a presentation for the JPA. Kirk said he would like a sense of the insurance alliances that a physicians’ group would use in order to ensure district hospitals could begin offering an insurance product. “And that’s a tall order,” he said.
J. Nevin Smith said the group would have to get other people involved. “You may need to think about getting together with other district hospitals,” he said. Kirk even thought that “just Sonoma County would not fly.”
Hospital CEO Carl Gerlach said he had spoken with a member of an organization providing managed care and asked, “Would you be interested in bringing your company and service to this area?” Reportedly, the reply was, “Not until you have your network of providers set up. And then, you have to show us that you can work together.” So, Gerlach said, “you need to have a cooperative, big hospital player in the game.” In addition, he said, “you have to have the right kind of customer base that will ‘spread the risk.’”
Kirk asked what were the next steps. Gerlach said the JPA needs to reach an agreement on a shared strategy. “The JPA needs to move forward.” Fogg agreed to put to put together a “generalized list of what we understand is necessary,” in order to put something concrete in front of the decision makers for the Dec. 9 JPA meeting. Kirk agreed. “We have to be aware of the difficulties and move forward with all haste.”