Are you applying for the vacant seat on the Alameda Heathcare District Board? If so, your app is due on January 3rd.

The information about the Alameda Healthcare District Board vacancy is here.

Also, AHD Board Member Gorelick’s first post of 2013 is here.  His post contains 3 points. I’ve taken the liberty of republishing his third point:

3.  The application process for the Board seat vacated by Stewart Chen is ongoing.  Thursday, January 3 is the last day to apply so, if you were considering it, you may have to scramble.  Unfortunately, there is little chance that the Board majority would allow someone with the idea of closing the Hospital on, but perhaps you enjoy quixotic efforts.   Several times I have referred to the previous application process where the odious Williams was chosen where it was ridiculously obvious that she was the designated choice.   Unless you have been solicited to apply by one of the Board majority, don’t count on having a chance of actually serving.  - Elliott Gorelick, January 1, 2013

We can safely conclude…

Alameda Hospital CEO Deborah Stebbins should resign and Alameda Healthcare District (AHD) board majority members should resign; failing that, we should recall four of the five board members. Why? Read this. Read this.

And consider this:

Any organization will naturally evolve towards the reduction of risk. The only time it does not is when there is either ignorance (lack of information or inability to think things through) or corruption. We know, evidence shows, that the directions the AHD board’s majority leadership are taking us are increasing our risk (medically, financially). We also know that the facts are available to make better decisions and those in charge have the mental capacity to comprehend those facts and understand the increased—unacceptable by regular business and healthcare conventions—risks their decisions are creating (and for which leaves us [Alameda residents] high & dry, left holding the debt they created.)

It follows then, does it not?, that: we can safely conclude that there is corruption in the AHD board and Alameda Hospital’s leadership and management.

Write the misbehaving Alameda Healthcare District board. Tell them to shape up or ship out:

Jordan Battani, President: JBattani@alamedahospital.org

Robert Deutsch, M.D., 1st Vice President: RDeutsch@alamedahospital.org

J. Michael McCormick, Treasurer: Mmccormick@alamedahospital.org

Steward Chen, D.C., 2nd Vice President: SChen@alamedahospital.org

And support Mr. Elliot Gorelick’s work on the AHD board. His evidence-based discussions—the first rational discussions ever at the AHD that I can tell—are significant towards helping us understand what’s really going on. And what’s been going on since the inception of the AHD in 2002 (and the hospital by itself before that), is not on the up and up.  Not even close. Never has been apparently. (You’ll remember the gaming of the emergency medical systems [ambulance] protocols since the early 1980s through last year [2010!] to ensure revenue-bringing acute cases be brought to the hospital….despite the fact that other hospitals were medically the correct choice and contemporary medical standard for care all of those years!)

Elliott Gorelick, Secretary: EGorelick@alamedahospital.org

Bookmark and read regularly: Mr. Gorelick’s blog is Notes from the Hospital

Healthcare District.

The Alameda Healthcare District Board continues to be focused on the wrong business strategies with OUR money: expanding services specific to geriatric patients (wound care, sub-acute care, and long term care).  That’d be fine IF they had also solved for servicing the City of Alameda in a way that, oh, serves us!  If they’d spent the $60M+ tax dollars, free money, we’ve given them on becoming solvent and providing services that are most needed by resident Alamedans.  They haven’t. They aren’t even close to being financially responsible. Competing with world class medical centers across the estuary makes no sense: there’s no way they can catch up let alone keep up! Nor should they: there are plenty of medical services that are mundane yet very important to provide to resident Alamedans.

But their focus these days is spending our tax dollars in ways that doesn’t benefit most of us…..but does appear to benefit one particular board member and his practice: Dr. Deutsch.

The closed session meeting tomorrow morning….

Healthcare.

The Alameda Healthcare District meeting is 7p on Monday, July 11th, at the hospital (second floor).

ATTEND THE MEETING.

VOICE YOUR OPPOSITION.

TO THE DIRECTION THE MAJORITY OF THE AHD BOARD IS TAKING US AND HOW THEY ARE SPENDING OUR MONEY.

The majority on the board intend to vote to approve the levy of the parcel tax on us again for 2012. And they intend to spend that $5.5M on opening up a new facility on Atlantic Avenue (extremely pricey medical retrofitting) that serves off-island patient populations. HUH? That’s right: they intend to spend the free money we give them each year to sustain on-island medical services to serve us, the residents, on a business that focuses on serving the cities off-island. HUH?

I’m outraged at the audacity of the AHD board; aren’t you?!

Read on below to better understand the absolute impudence they have shown with this new business strategy.

And this critically important reading on the AHD Board: Should the Board Majority and Deborah Stebbins Resign?

———–

In a city of around 75,000 people, a small subset, about 500 or so, residents need care for open wounds that won’t heal. They need specific in- and out-patient treatments for their wounds. But that’s a pretty small percent of our population, right?

Then WHY is the Alameda Healthcare District (AHD) spending the $5.5M in parcel tax dollars we give them on opening a wound care center on Atlantic Avenue?

The answer, directly from Alameda Hospital CEO Deborah Stebbins at last month’s AHD meeting: to serve (read: drive revenue from) off-island populations.  That’s right: their bright, shiny, new idea is to use our parcel tax dollars to start a new business to provide healthcare services that primarily meet the needs of non-Alamedans. HUH?!

It doesn’t make sense to spend all of the free money we give them on less than 1% of our population. That’s not healthcare for the residents of the city of Alameda. That’s highway robbery!

The Alameda Hospital Emergency Department (ED) sees, on average, 45 patients per day…..

AHD Board decisions based upon anecdotal evidence. Huh?

Mr. Gorelick hasn’t posted notes yet from last night’s Alameda Healthcare District board meeting, but when he does (soon), you’ll find them here.

I went to the meeting to see their discussion about becoming a primary stroke center (PSC). What I saw should concern everyone.  Mr. Gorelick brought reasoned questions, facts, medical science, the probabilities about the direction of future stroke care as indicated by hospitals well ahead of ours, etc., etc., to the table in hopes of a meaningful discussion to optimize moving forward with or without becoming a primary stroke center (not to be confused with a ‘comprehensive stroke center’). He asked that decisions be based on evidence.  Not one other board member was interested.

Mr. Gorelick suggested repeatedly . . .

Understanding the hospital issues better.

Elliot Gorelick’s (gor-REL-ick) answers to residents’ tough questions on ‘Officially Speaking’ (here) are a great first step towards understanding the hospital issues better. Mr. Gorelick goes a long ways here towards helping us understand the complexity of the issues rationally, without the usual Alamedan emotional component.  Read his statements here.  Keep up on his work on the hospital board in his new blog that he’s writing just for that purpose here.

He provides impressive discussion answers and it’s refreshing to see an elected official be so transparent, considerate and erudite in a public forum. . . .

Mr. Gorelick’s Notes

Mr. Elliott Gorelick’s notes, from the December 13, 2010, Alameda Healthcare District board meeting, are here.

Just the facts, ma’am.

So y’all read the bit in the Alameda Sun where Gorelick is accused by Leah Williams (sore loser) of misrepresenting himself on the election ballot. The story is here.  He’s an ‘intern pharmacist’ and not simply ‘pharmacist’.  They are the same thing essentially, just he can’t work  as the top doctor in charge at any pharmacy yet.  Williams is simply trying to discredit Gorelick in his own backyard.  The truth: “Gorelick said he properly listed ‘intern pharmacist’ on his candidacy paperwork and that the designation was rejected by Alameda County elections officials.”  The closest occupation the county would allow was simply ‘pharmacist’.

Michelle Ellison has reported on the whole story on The Island here.