CEO Report Notes from August 28, 2024

The following is an outline of comments from the CEO at the recent Redwood Coast Medical Services (RCMS) Board Meeting.
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Community Outreach

• On Saturday, August 10th, we participated in the Coastal Fire and Safety Fair at Sea Ranch. We had a booth there. We created and distributed handouts detailing Emergency Supplies people should have at home. We categorized those into groups: earthquake, tsunami, extended power outage, and forest fire. We also provided a list of emergency supplies people should have in their cars. We also took the opportunity during the Fair to distribute Blood Pressure Measuring home devices (distributed about 70 devices). All in all, it was a good community event.
   

Organizational/Operational update

• We recognized this month two of our key Primary care providers – Dr. Tom Bertolli for 40 years of service to RCMS, and Nurse Practitioner Lois Falk for 45 years of Service to RCMS. We held a BBQ for all team members where they were presented with special plaques recognizing their service to RCMS and the community. Several of our Board Members were also able to attend that activity. Thank you, Tom and Lois, for all you do for RCMS and our patients.
• One of our Primary Care Providers, Kathy Willems, decided to retire. She was well-liked by her patients and had a full panel. We wish her well in her retirement. Currently, we are in the process of informing all her patients how they can set up appointments with a different Primary Care Provider.
• We had hired a new Dentist last month. Unfortunately, he was not a good fit for our Dental Clinic, and we decided to terminate the relationship.
• We continue our recruiting effort to add Providers to our roaster. We have an MD intern rotating with us now for two weeks, primarily working in Urgent Care. We also have a Physician who has a house in our community who will interview with us next month.
• As I mentioned last month – our compute and communication infrastructure and associated performance of our IT systems have been an issue for us for a long time. It continues to adversely impact our operation. As such, we may be looking at transitioning some of our services to a different support organization than we currently have. This is a process and will happen over multiple months.
• Tomorrow is an important day for Gualala Main Clinic. Tomorrow, Partnership Health Plan, which is MediCal for us, is coming to do their once-in-three-year clinical audit of our main Gualala facility. This is a critical activity, and a successful audit is a requirement for providing care to MediCal patients. As part of this activity, Partnership finished auditing provider charts yesterday. That was online. Tomorrow they will be here in person. We are prepared.
• Earlier this month, California Primary Care Association’s CEO along with their VP of Government Affairs visited RCMS. The California Primary Care Association (CPCA) is the statewide leader and a recognized voice representing the interests of California’s community health centers (CHCs) like us and their patients. CPCA represents more than 1,250 not-for-profit Health Centers and Regional Clinic Associations.  They are influential voices in Sacramento as well as in Washington.
  
  Several of our staff and Board members were able to meet them. We had some insightful conversations, and I hope they got a sense of the critical role we perform to positively impact the healthcare outcomes of the people in our remote, isolated, and underserved community. Visibility with CPCA, for all the right reasons, is important to RCMS.

 
Facilities Update

• The Mendocino County Archeological Commission considered our application and determined that an archeological survey would be necessary. To satisfy this requirement Archaeological Resource Service of Rohnert Park has been retained to complete a Cultural Resources Inventory of the site.
• The Architectural and Engineering team is close to completing the 100% Design Development plans. We are still on track to have 50% of Construction documents complete by the end of September, at which point they will be distributed to three local general contractors for pricing.
• The Collective Energy firm will be developing options for the installation of solar panels and battery storage in what will probably be two phases - one for the existing building and parking lot, and one for the new addition. At least one local contractor will be invited to bid on the installation of the system. Several financing options are available through Collective Energy that include extensive use of federal incentives. Recommended systems and the financing mechanism will be brought back to the Board for final approval at a future meeting.

• Our Capital Campaign consultant team is in the process of completing its background work for the capital campaign. We will be working with them to develop a capital campaign plan, and we should have a draft from them within the next month.

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