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….

Hiatus. Sort of.

Too busy this week to post much, but I want to mention two items.

ONE: The FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission) is investigating Dr. Deutsch.  They responded to my request to look into what I see is a conflict of interest.  We all know that we need medical staff on the hospital board; that’s not the issue. What is the issue is that  without the Alameda Healthcare District (AHD) board’s annual vote to levy the parcel tax on us, the hospital could not afford to exist.  Through his practice and clinic located within the hospital walls, Dr. Deutsch earns over $200K per year.  As a board member, he has never recused himself from this annual AHD vote.  This is a serious conflict of interest.  Stay tuned; I am waiting to hear what the FPPC says, and too, what the witnesses to this conflict say in writing to the FPPC. Those witnesses are Hospital CEO Deborah Stebbins, AHD Board president Jordan Battani, and City Councilmember Rob Bonta (prior AHD board member).  They know far more than I about the dependence of Deutsch’s private practice and clinic on the hospital.

TWO:  Back to our future.  Interesting in today’s Alameda Sun, John Knox White writes about the financial instability of our city….which is exactly why so many of us are perturbed at the fiduciary irresponsibility shown by Mayor Gilmore…