SoHum Boards Work With Each Other on Healthcare Planning
Press release from SoHum Health(Please remember that this is not neutral reporting but a press release from Boards in the Southern Humboldt Community):
Twenty four representatives of four local organizations met January 16th at the Hospital’s new Sprowel Creek campus to explore the possibilities for improving healthcare outreach to Northern Mendocino and Southern Humboldt’s smaller, remote communities.
Board members and senior staff from Redwoods Rural Health Center, SoHum Health, the Healy Senior Center and Heart of the Redwoods Community Hospice summarized recent additions to local primary care, diagnostic capabilities and the potential for making new services available throughout our area. Partnership Health Plan of California also participated.
During small group breakout conversations, both Redwoods Rural and SoHum Health board members discussed the importance of re-building trust with community members who decided long ago to drive north or south for their medical care. That was before today’s level of diagnostic technology and deep primary care staffing were available.
Triggered in part by grants from Vocality Credit Union and organized by the SoHum Health board, participants also heard about the role of community health workers in other communities. Guest speakers for the event were Jill Tregor (a professor at San Francisco City College) and Julian Montgomery (a community health worker for the San Francisco Health Plan).
“Meals-on-Wheels drivers, Hospice and home health nurses, fire department volunteers and others are already bringing healthcare to homebound seniors in your area,” Julian said. “It may be as simple as equipping them well and offering additional education to broaden the services they’re already offering.”
Erica Boyd, current board chair at Redwoods Rural, previously served as a community health worker in Humboldt County. She offered context about the unique challenges of serving such a remote area and the isolation, which seniors can experience at a time in their lives when social interaction becomes more important than ever.
Toward the end of the meeting, participants from all four organizations volunteered to meet regularly as an informal committee, to organize communication about the broader primary care and diagnostic services, which are now available locally.
“We are fortunate to have two well-staffed clinics and active nonprofits in our area,” said Corinne Stromstad, chair of the SoHum Health board. “We’ll support this committee and their recommendations as they are formulated, to continue the spirit of collaboration which this planning group created.”
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Maybe with increased outreach and enforcement we can increase the number of mentally retarded children in our community. We can create life-time health care dependent recipients/gifters to keep the cheese flowing. We need more neurological conditioning of the none vaxxers.
What kind of abuse did you suffer as a child?
That’s an imposter. I’m the real cheese. I am actually all for medical services in our area. Glad to here all hospitals and clinics working together. Bravo! Let’s just keep the option open of what dr you want to see and what hospital you want to take care of you. That’s still an option that government funded “free” healthcare does not offer. Free healthcare is substandard healthcare.
What exactly are you trying to say because that word salad makes no sense…
🕯🌳I’ve been trying to tell you people they working on you for the next election. They were in the in darkroom but got caught and kicked out,go figure that one out,now there here and have been for awhile. Trying to embed you with there racism, hatred, malice or anything against your good nature. It’s up to you were you go.🖖🇺🇸
And not being sucked in by nonsense is a good place to start. And the first thing to question is “they” conspiracy theories.
Maybe offer behavioral health and mental health services at SHCHD. Maybe hire some MFT’s and some Drug Counselors at SHCHD.
While we’re on the subject, some of the Board Members at SHCHD seem pretty old themselves, and while Corrine runs a tight meeting, she is getting up towards being a SNF patient herself! The rest of the Board Members her age resigned long ago, and Ordonez and the rest clearly have little actual healthcare experience!
Wanting to do outreach to a community that has abandoned your facility and the few services you do actually offer, seems like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped…
SHCHD will need to evolve and develop needed services like Women’s Health, Drug Rehab, Mental Health/Behavioral Health and others, like maybe start a pharmacy to compete with the terrible gougers at Rays!
SHCHD, if it could break out of the grasp of the broken Board and the embedded long time locals that run SHCHD, along with the very poor quality administrators, might have a chance of developing new lines of business that would attract new customers, but as long as they stick to the same old people doing business in the same old way, that shiny new Real Estate will go unused…
The challenges of operating an outpost of medical care, in a resistant and apathetic community, will not be simply wished away by a few folks who have an infantile infatuation with running a hospital! It’s hard work, and requires skilled professional leadership, and effective leadership is exactly what SHCHD lacks most!
Let’s be honest SHCHD, you lost your patient base by mismanaging your staff, physicians and patients. It’s hard to regain control of a market that has been frittered away by bad decisions and poor leaders!
There’s a nice new hospital in Willits, run by folks who know how! Cruise on down there!
Such an interesting post. Not. [edit] SO sick of your negatively. Oh, wait. I just fed a troll. Pluuuufffffffff.
Changing the name and making a pastel heart sign doesn’t change the experience that so many of us have had at SHCHD. I mean So Hum Health. I mean Jerold Phelps (poor guy must be happy at this point to know that they’ve stolen his hospital). It’s a pretty small community to treat badly. A late lesson to learn that we won’t come back after being thugged by the system that we’re supposed to own.
I wish that Redwoods Rural wouldn’t soil themselves by association. And I remain deeply angry at *Vocality* for giving our money to that hot mess of gangsters that calls itself SoHum Health.
Here’s a great example of why things never change in Humboldt:
https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2020/jan/24/wow-incumbent-supervisors-sure-have-lot-more-money/
Redwood Rural does a good job providing services that the community needs. And it’s Federally Funded.
SHCHD is rated “Too poor to rate” for delivering needed services, and, financially speaking, squeaks by from year to year on borrowed and donated money, although the “cash cow” SNF and the Federal Funds from Medicare and Medi-Cal keep the day to day bills paid, most of the time…
So, of course they want to investigate patients who are falling through the cracks! Maybe they can milk a bit more out of the community, maybe they can stagger a few more feet before the eventual collapse that SHCHD faces!
SHCHD is great at spending money they don’t have, but, they suck at generating sufficient income from profitable operations, and delivery of critically needed services.
They talk and talk, but it runs about as well as unprepared and incapable candidates running for Supervisor! In the end, if nothing changes, nothing is going to change, including the eventual outcome!
In the last month, one member of my family has had to be at the Garberville hospital for antibiotics daily and I’ve had to go several times for physical therapy. We were treated professionally. We did not have to drive to Eureka every time. I’m a very satisfied customer.
Ms Kemp:
It’s important to some, having something, anything, nearby. You live remote, and so do I, and we travel for everything we need.
It’s also important to be your own advocate for the care you need! Even I have visited SHCHD, at a time when I needed antibiotics for a sinus infection, and when I also needed to conserve my time.
The care you receive there, for simple conditions, is probably as effective as the care you receive anywhere else. Healthcare is defined by a set of rules, called “standard of care”, so if you see a person defined as a provider, you will almost always receive the same kinds of treatment. Many insurance companies are trying to get patients to receive their clinic visit over the phone! No need to visit a provider for simple stuff…
Where it breaks down, is where it gets more complicated. If lab tests are ordered, if the provider needs to follow up, if communications break down…
Even at large clinics, care has become a struggle to consume! Appointments are not always available, providers are scarce, clinics are overrun with patients, there’s not enough primary care physicians, anywhere in Northern CA!
The companies operating the hospitals, are more concerned with finances, than taking care of patients! This is the main problem. Secondarily, employees are mistreated, staffing is short, stress is high, and, administrators don’t tell the whole story, ever!
Even the doctors, these days, are expected to do administrative jobs, to divert time from care to management, and to increasing revenue by doing a second job in addition to taking care of patients!
It’s a crazy field, any more, and we find fewer and fewer people who want to practice medicine at all, simply because there are easier ways to make money, and, because physicians are handcuffed by regulatory agencies, and, they are forced to create volumes of records, to cover their actions. Even an FNP knows that there are limits set by the government, and providers in general, are getting pretty hamstrung.
We do find bad providers, the doctor who raids the medicine cupboard for the amphetamines or the narcotics, the provider who fails to keep good records… These people exist, and the mental health disorders that affect ordinary humans can plague medical providers too!
In Garberville, you have a facility that has struggled to exist, but, in the past, many locals were born there! You can travel around the western world, and always end up talking to someone who has been to Garberville, or hung out there, at some point… Often, they say “is that hospital still there?” “Unbelievable!”
It’s close to the heart, to own a hospital. Locals love these tiny facilities in an irrational way, but, in my opinion, if you need a clinic visit, it’s probably as good as any.
The people who work inside these places are focused, they are professionals, and they care! Hospital workers want you to receive the best care possible, and I know, because I spent many years working inside them.
For SHCHD to do press releases like this one, is an extension of the advertising done on this site. It seems a bit cynical to me, but SHCHD talked about aligning with RRC as far back as 2012, and, SHCHD has much to learn to from an operation like RRC.
My suggestions that SHCHD endeavor to develop a more extensive staff, and to develop lines of business that are needed by the community, are consistent going back to 2012 also. Mostly, SHCHD has added few services, and continues to deliver care with few physicians, and a thin staff.
Yes, you can see a contractor ER doctor, a contractor PT, there will be a nurse to give you your infusion, if you need it. This is as it should be, but I feel that SHCHD can do more, offer more, and I will continue to advise SHCHD to evolve, to grow, and to deliver needed services as part of it’s mission.
While I may not approve of the administrators, the chosen processes used to select board members, or the condition of the physical plant, I do believe that having the facility is appropriate and correct, and I hope the community can maintain the clinic and SNF into the future. Whether or not it will exist as a district hospital, remains to be seen, but I believe it will exist in some form, for future residents of SoHum.
Thanks for your testimony, Ms Kemp, I hope you and your people are safe and well.
Personally I have received very good care at the Healthcare District. And having a 24hr. ER in our community is huge. Having served on both Redwoods Rural and SHCHD’s boards I am very glad they are looking at increased cooperation. All the hospitals in Humboldt struggle with staffing issues. Its one of the reasons so many patients are transported out of county for treatment.
It’s good to hear that these two health entities are looking at greater co-operation. (In business terms, the advantages of working together are called synergy.) Past rivalries between the two seem to me to have been short-sighted and misguided. I have been treated at both, and I find that each offers a different patient experience. The preference of one over the other is purely personal.
Jesus Chris! You are so wrong about your so called information as to be ridiculous. The healthcare district is doing Great. Wherever you’re looking for a so called rating hasn’t updated their page in a long time. I have a feeling you don’t have a clue about whats going on now and are repeating situations from over a dozen years ago. Things were bad back then but this administrator knows what he’s doing. Things have turned around and it’s growing. Do you think they could have found the money for the cat scan is they were in trouble? How about the money and regulations concerning buying the new campus to build the new hospital? You do not get to do that if you are in trouble financially. And it’s all paid for!!!! Criticisms abound in the medical world and for all kinds of reasons. I wonder what your reason is.
One thing for sure. Dave and Bunny love their hospital. Fine. There it is. Enjoy.
Your assessment seems based on fantasy, but believe what you want. Harry Jasper used to hand out some good kool-aid too… How did you like him?
I only have one question: If Matt Rees is a “good administrator”, what is he doing in Garberville, in the smallest facility in CA, which has the fewest services?
Last point: Abusive individuals are allowed to continue in charge at SHCHD, namely, the COO and the Medical Director, and the HR director. Is this the image you want?
When SHCHD evolves, it may improve. If it continues as it is, I doubt if folks who refuse to use it will change their minds.
Thanks for your comment, Bunny!
Don’t worry people. It will all change when everyone is forced to have free healthcare.Enjoy it while it last.
JC…You need to do a little research before you spout. Are you another disgruntled ex employee of the district? All you gutless anons really need to run for a position on one of these boards and you might get a small sense of the challenge that is keeping the services we have. Please put a name with your posts so we can at least know you cranks aren’t all the same person.
Here we go, Judith Gonzales narrowly beat Clifford Anderson for the Board seat, in the fall of 2012.
Judith only served a few months…
And Judith Gonzales was the last person elected, in a fair election, to be a board member.
Relax Dave, you can’t control everything…