November 9, 2016
Petaluma Health Care District Honored with 2016 Jefferson Award for Public Service

Petaluma Health Care District (PHCD) is thrilled to announce that it has been honored with the coveted Jefferson Award for Public Service from the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

Established in 1972, the award is given to outstanding organizations and individuals who have had a deep impact on the quality of life in the communities they serve. Previous national recipients include Oprah Winfrey, Cesar Chavez and Jimmy Carter. This year marked the 10th anniversary for the Sonoma County Jefferson Award program. PHCD’s Board of Directors and CEO Ramona Faith were presented with the award on Nov. 1.

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November 7, 2016 - News Brief
Petaluma Health Care District provides unique model

The Petaluma Health Care District (PHCD) is one of 78 health care districts in California.

The core mission of health care districts remains to ensure health and health care services are provided to the communities that created them.

Financially, PHCD operates a little differently than most as it does not rely on parcel taxes, which most do, for financial support. The district’s assets total $11 million, and revenue comes from the hospital lease payment from the operator, direct services, and investments.

“We’re unique in that we own Petaluma Valley Hospital (PVH), and lease out operations, which allows us to focus on community health programs,” said Ramona Faith, district CEO. “The district has really elevated its role and impact on community health by creating a model that brings together all sectors of the community to address greatest health needs in southern Sonoma County.”

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October 31, 2016
Journal names 20 Healthiest Companies of the North Bay

The North Business Journal announced 20 winners of the 2016 Healthiest Companies in the North Bay Awards. The Business Journal recognized companies for going above and beyond in encouraging and enabling their employees to stay active and healthy at work and home.

“Over the years I have had recipients tell me this award has spurred them on to create and improve wellness programs inside their organizations and that, as a result, they have had employees make life-changing decisions to lose weight or quit smoking,” said Business Journal Publisher Brad Bollinger. “That is humbling and at the same time these stories motivate us to keep this award going,” he said. “Every year more and more companies are getting more and more serious about employee wellness, putting written policies in place and even evaluating managers on meeting employee health goals.”

Six-time winners of the award include: Kaiser Permanente, Keysight Technologies, St. Joseph, W. Bradley Electric; five time winners: BPM, Exchange Bank, Ghilotti Bros., Inc.; and Petaluma Health Care District and Workrite Ergonomics are three-time winners.

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October 20, 2016
Details emerge in hospital talks

Birth control key to collapse of talks between Catholic St. Joseph, public district

As talks between St. Joseph Health and the Petaluma Health Care District over an operating agreement for Petaluma Valley Hospital ramped up earlier this year, women’s reproductive health services emerged as a key sticking point that ultimately led to the collapse of negotiations and cast uncertainty over the future of Petaluma’s only acute care facility.

Officials from St. Joseph and the public health care district shared new details about the negotiations that ended abruptly on Oct. 5 when the Catholic healthcare provider pulled out of the talks. St. Joseph Health has been operating the hospital under a 20-year lease set to expire in January.

The district had selected St. Joseph as its top choice from among four bidders to continue operations, and had been engaged in talks with the company for the past year. But ultimately the two sides could not agree on financial terms, a non-compete clause and reproductive health services, according to officials on both sides. One of the main issu

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October 13, 2016
Program helps find missing elderly

When Petaluma biochemist and environmental leader Gerald Moore was found last May after being lost for more than 24 hours, Petaluma police were able to locate him using techniques they currently employ under a program established to make it easier to locate missing elderly loved ones.

Moore, 77, was found unharmed by police near Frates and Old Adobe Road after an extensive community search. The Safe Return program, started a year ago, organizes information to aid police and the community in locating those who suffer from varying forms of memory loss, whether due to injury, medications or dementia.

Jennifer Pritchard, community education outreach and volunteer coordinator for the Petaluma Police Department, said Safe Return is vital to creating an efficient process for finding a person who has gone missing and cannot help themselves.

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October 13, 2016
Health Center gets top rating

Petaluma Health Center and Rohnert Park Health Center scored among the top 1 percent of more than 1,600 community health centers in the nation, according to a recent survey.

Petaluma Health Center underwent an operational site visit and a federal review conducted by the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to assess the health center’s clinical operations, administrative and financial management processes.

Following a comprehensive evaluation of Petaluma Health Center’s services and clinical, fiscal and administrative policies, procedures and protocols, a team of three federal reviewers concluded that the health center met all of the 19 Health Center Program federal requirements. Only 1 percent of the 1,600 federally-qualified health centers achieve 100 percent compliance, according to Pedro Toledo, chief admin-istrative officer of the health center.

October 8, 2016
PD Editorial: Charting a new path for Petaluma Valley Hospital

The partnership between Petaluma Valley and Santa Rosa Memorial hospitals started with a feisty and very public debate about women’s reproductive services and the future of health care in Sonoma County. Twenty years later, that partnership has ended rather quietly — and, for many observers, unexpectedly.

St. Joseph Health, a not-for-profit Catholic health care organization that owns Memorial and Queen of the Valley Medical Center in Napa, assumed management of publicly owned Petaluma Valley Hospital in 1997. It was selected this year over three other bidders to continue running the south county’s only acute-care hospital.

This week, however, St. Joseph and the Petaluma Health Care District abruptly ended negotiations on a 20-year lease renewal.

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October 5, 2016 - News Brief
Petaluma Health Care District and St. Joseph Health End Lease Negotiations for Petaluma Valley Hospital

The Petaluma Health Care District (PHCD) and St. Joseph Health (SJH) have officially ended negotiations regarding the future lease and operations of Petaluma Valley Hospital. Multiple factors influenced this decision, including the inability to reach a workable agreement.

PHCD and SJH will now concentrate efforts on working collaboratively on a transition plan. Leadership from both entities anticipates the transition of hospital operations from SJH to take several months, with SJH agreeing to remain in full-service operation until Sept. 1, 2017 or a mutually agreed-upon transition date to another operator.

No changes to services or care delivery are expected during the transition period and Petaluma Valley Hospital is fully prepared to continue meeting the needs of patients and their families.

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October 1, 2016 - News Brief
New screening guidelines for breast cancer prevention fuel debate over mammograms

For decades, enduring a mammogram was a rite of passage for women turning 40.

Absent symptoms or genetics that would trigger screening at an earlier age, women knew reaching the four-decade mark meant they’d soon face getting squeezed in a machine for their own good.

But evolving recommendations from the American Cancer Society and from an influential federal task force on preventive medicine now hold that it’s better to wait until age 45 or even 50 to start having routine mammograms

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September 9, 2016 - News Brief
Taxpayers win bid to leave district

Russian River taxpayers weary of supporting the struggling Sonoma West Medical Center won a crucial victory this week when a key county commission backed their effort to exit the Palm Drive Health Care District, which provides the hospital with important financial backing.

The Sonoma County Local Area Formation Commission — after hearing arguments for and against the “detachment” effort — voted unanimously Wednesday evening to let property owners in three school districts in the Russian River area leave the 16-year-old hospital district.

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September 8, 2016 - News Brief
Health clinic moves to prominent locale downtown

St. Joseph Health has relocated a former clinic on the outskirts of Petaluma to a high-profile location along East Washington Street, a revamped facility that will eventually offer expanded hours over the typical doctor’s office.

The new office at 905 East Washington St. is part of a broader strategy for the health care provider in Sonoma County, where a handful of “after-hours” clinics are offering primary care during the evenings and weekends, said Bob Just, chief operating officer for St. Joseph Heritage Healthcare in Northern California, which operates physicians offices for St. Joseph in the region.

The expanded hours are expected to ramp up later this year, he said. “There’s really nothing open after 5 p.m. except for the emergency room, and we knew that wasn’t always the best place for people to receive their care,” Just said.

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August 25, 2016 - Announcement
Rep. Huffman Announces Federal Grants to Local Health Centers to Continue to Provide High Quality, Comprehensive Care

Washington, D.C.-Congressman Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael) today announced that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has awarded $897,200 in federal funds to health centers across Huffman’s Congressional District to expand on their achievements in providing high quality, comprehensive care.

The funding, awarded as part of Affordable Care Act’s Community Health Center (CHC) Fund, will allow fourteen health centers in California’s second congressional district to invest in current quality improvement systems and infrastructure and to improve primary care service delivery.

The Petaluma Health Center will receive $151,429 from the grant to expand patient care.

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August 15, 2016 - News Brief
North Bay midwives reduce C-section rate

Despite the cost, and risk to mother and baby, the number of women giving birth by cesarean delivery, or C-section, increased by 60 percent in the U.S. between 1996 and 2009, and by 2011 it was the nation’s most common operating room procedure.

With a resurgence of midwives, however, studies show that C-section rates at hospitals where they are employed are much lower.

At 26 percent, California is below the national average of 32 percent, and at hospitals in the North Bay the rate is even lower.

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August 15, 2016 - News Brief
New health network coming to North Bay this fall

Come this fall, a new insurance health network will be entering the North Bay market.

Based in Emeryville, Canopy Health was launched a year ago by University of California San Francisco Health and John Muir Health, and was formerly known as The Bay Area Accountable Care Network.

Already, Canopy Health (not to be confused with Canopy Health Insurance, based in Denver) has added seven new hospitals to their network. Those include Marin General Hospital; Sonoma Valley Hospital; San Ramon Regional Medical Center; Alameda Health System’s Alameda, Highland and San Leandro hospitals; and Washington Hospital Healthcare System.

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August 4, 2016 - News Brief
Hospital off of Nov. Ballot

A measure to ratify a new operating contract for Petaluma Valley Hospital will not be ready for the November ballot, meaning that the current, 20-year lease to operate the publicly owned facility will expire before voters can approve a new agreement.

The cause of the delay is several sticking points in the closed-door negotiations that continue to drag on between the public entity overseeing the process and its current leading candidate, hospital officials said.

The Petaluma Health Care District, the public entity which owns southern Sonoma County’s only acute-care hospital, will be seeking a temporary lease extension with incumbent operator St. Joseph Health while negotiations continue over the terms of the new agreement, said Ramona Faith, district CEO. Voters will have the final say in approving the terms that the district recommends.
 

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August, 2016 - News Brief
Health Care CEO Recognized as Local Business Leader

As one of the top 25 winners at the 16th Annual Women in Business Awards, Petaluma Health Care District (PHCD) Ceo Ramona Faith has been recognized as an influential health caer leader.

The Women in Business award recgonizes exceptional women in the North Bay for their recent accomplishments and contributions to the business community as leaders, innovators and visionaries. Faith was one of only three women in the health care field to be considered for the annual award presented by the North Bay Business Journal.

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July 26, 2016 - Press Release
Petaluma Health Care District Plans Community Meetings to Update on Petaluma Valley Hospital Operator Selection Process

PHCD will hold a series of five community meetings to update Southern Sonoma County residents on the status of PHCD’s due-diligence process to select Petaluma Valley Hospital’s (PVH) future operator. PHCD has narrowed its conversations to focus on re-leasing with St. Joseph Health. At the meetings, PHCD’s CEO will provide updates on the selection process and the status of negotiations with St. Joseph Health. These meetings are intended to inform the community and allow for public input and questions regarding the due-diligence process.

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June 30, 2016 - News Brief
Coalition no longer

Healthy Community Consortium, a Petaluma health promotion agency formed 14 years ago, is dissolving on June 30. The original funding partners made up of the Petaluma Health Care District, St. Joseph Health, Kaiser Permanente, City of Petaluma, Petaluma City Schools, and the Petaluma Police Department came together in 2002 but agreed that the coalition was no longer needed. The agency has had a recent focus on youth that includes promoting positive leadership, engagement and community building. It is responsible for Friday Night Live, Petaluma Youth Network, Safe School Ambassadors, Ready by 21, Prepare Petaluma and the South County Senior Forum. Petaluma Health Care District will continue to do much of the coalition and initiative building though it’s Community Health Initiative of the Petaluma Area.

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June 27, 2016 - News Brief
Ramona Faith of Petaluma Health Care District wins Women in Business award

With a bachelor of science degree in nursing from Chico State University, Ramona Faith began a career of caring as a medical surgical nurse. After years of service there, she added a Masters of Science in Nursing from Sonoma State University to her educational portfolio and eventually began 25 years in various executive positions in health care including becoming CEO of the Petaluma Health Care District.

It’s from that career vantage point that Faith, a fourth-generation resident of Petaluma, has overseen outreach to improve the health of the community, from educating residents to choose healthy foods to CPR training.

“I’m very proud of where we are today with a quality local hospital and measurable success stemming from our community health initiatives and programs.”

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June 23, 2016 - News Brief
Regulators OK merger of St. Joseph Health, Providence

St. Joseph Health and Providence Health and Services have received regulatory approval for a merger that will create the nation’s third-largest nonprofit health system, officials said Wednesday.

The California Attorney General’s office signed off on the deal between the two nonprofit Catholic hospital chains. The new entity, Providence St. Joseph Health, will include 16 St. Joseph hospitals, including Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and Petaluma Valley Hospital.

Providence is based in Renton, Wash. The companies sought a partnership in order to expand services and improve clinical outcomes through shared expertise.

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