League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 6, 2012 Election
	John Zoglin Answers Questions Candidate for Director; El Camino Hospital District

The questions were prepared by the Leagues of Women Voters of Santa Clara County and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. What experience or training do you have which would help the District meet its goals?

I have served for 5 years as a member of the El Camino Hospital District Board Member; currently I am Chairman of the Board.

My major accomplishments over the past 4 years include:

• Increased Transparency by Adding 24 community members to 6 new oversight committees
• Doubled Community Benefit expenditures to $5.5M/yr
• Improved efficiency and accountability by establishing an Organizational Scorecard to keep administrators aligned with the Hospital strategy
• Expanded the Women's Hospital, Stroke Center, Heart and Vascular Institute, South Asian Heart Center and Chinese Health Initiative

I have also been a major driver of El Camino Hospital migrating to Best Practices in our Strategic Process. Over the past two years the executive team and board have worked together to develop a consistent and rigorous approach to strategic analysis. This discipline is particularly important in this time of change within the healthcare industry. The Hospital must have a sophisticated understanding of its capabilities to effectively move forward in these uncertain times.

With forthcoming expansion in available data, I have been encouraging administration to ensure we develop our ability to analyze the data - a need that requires not only analysts focused on the data, but evolving into a culture of analysis where everyone is trained to approach care in a data driven manner. This culture of analysis will allow us to reinvigorate our commitment to data driven decisions in support of Evidence Based Medicine. To improve our data collection we have been working with physicians, both independent and at major partners like PAMF and Stanford, to ensure that they use electronic health records and that they can easily share the data with the hospital.

Improved efficiency. With the downturn in the economy the Hospital Administration found that we were losing millions of dollars per month. The Board worked to ensure that the hospital engaged in a rigorous re-engineering process that eliminated an estimated $70 million per year in annual costs. A new COO with deep expertise in Lean Management will lead our efforts in further cutting costs and improving healthcare affordability.

2. What is your evaluation of the financial condition of the District?

The hard work undertaken by the executive team, management and El Camino Hospital unions reduced annual costs by an estimated $70 million per year.

This thoughtful effort has put the Hospital in a strong financial position -- for Now.

However, the healthcare industry is evolving quickly and independent community hospitals such as El Camino Hospital -- that are committed to the healthcare of the local community -- are coming under increasing financial pressure. The consolidation of primary care physicians into more and more concentrated groups puts independent hospitals at significant risk over the upcoming years.

In support of maintaining our award-winning, high quality of care, independent hospital I am committed to balancing the needs of all El Camino Hospital District stakeholders in support of El Camino Hospital's recently updated Strategy:

"El Camino Hospital will be a locally controlled leader in optimizing the health and wellness of our communities in Silicon Valley, differentiated by innovative continuum of care developed in partnership with physicians, businesses, and payors."

...and Positioning Statement: El Camino Hospital will first be a value-based health care provider offering top decile, acute care quality at mid-level pricing, moving toward continuum partnerships that integrate care coordination and delivery strategies focused on the Triple Aim of quality, service, and affordability.

We must have leadership from the Board to execute on this strategy and positioning or El Camino Hospital's financial condition will deteriorate quickly.

Imbedded within these statements are four health care goals that indicate an evolution of El Camino Hospital's direction from its priorities over the first 50 years. These goals reflect the dynamic health care environment:

1. Focus on quality of care not just within the confines of the hospital campuses, but across the continuum of care. Research indicates that patients are often at most risk in transition between care givers; El Camino Hospital must take a leadership role in integrating and coordinating care with physicians and other care givers throughout episodes of care.

2. With healthcare costs becoming increasingly unaffordable, as an institution we can no longer be committed only to quality. El Camino Hospital must also do whatever we can to make health care as affordable as possible.

3. The delivery of healthcare is increasingly a partnership. Not just among health care service providers, but also between care givers and patients. Patients' and their families' needs and wishes deserve respect.

4. We must re-invigorate the spirit of innovation that delivered the first Medical Information System in the country here at El Camino Hospital. A cultural commitment to innovation across not only technologies but also processes can accelerate both the translation of research to patients and the adoption of processes based on evidence based medicine

3. In what ways would you collaborate with other governmental entities and community groups to achieve the District's goals?

Over the past 4 years we have developed close relationships with all the major community groups in the District responsible for Healthcare -- 31 organizations in all. Together we have served almost 80,000 residents.

We more than doubled the annual amount of tax money we spend on community care to the maximum allowed by law: $5.5 million. Even more important than the amount we spend is how we spend it. Our community care investments are characterized by:

• Aligning with tri-annual assessment of care gaps in Santa Clara County (the hospital spent more money to ensure a broader survey of the northern Santa Clara County citizens we serve)
• Working closely with the broad range of community organizations providing expertise not just money. We established a philosophy that we would: only contribute financially when we could also contribute our expertise, serve as a focal point, coordinating efforts among community organizations and work with organizations to improve their metrics, quality and accountability:

o May 22, 2012 the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors recognized the successful partnership between the El Camino Hospital (ECHD) and Santa Clara County Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) in providing medical and dental services for uninsured families at Valley Health Center (VHC) Over the past three years, El Camino Hospital District has donated a total of $3.8 million to underwrite otherwise un-funded services at Valley Health Center Sunnyvale to help nearly 14,000 patients receive cost-effective primary care and dental services. Chris Wilder, VMCF Executive Director said, "When we and El Camino Hospital District team up to provide care for patients, we are improving health outcomes, and reducing trips to the emergency room and return trips to doctors."

o June 7, 2012 Sunnyvale School District passed a resolution recognizing El Camino Hospital District's ongoing commitment to addressing persistent unmet health needs for students in the District. Over three years, the District has provided more than $1.1 million in grants to fund a variety of programs that have helped more than 19,000 students. "The El Camino Hospital District is a true partner that ensures we have the resources we need to help our students cope with physical and emotional issues that often impact academic performance," said Dr. Ben Picard, superintendent, Sunnyvale School District.

o In November 2011 El Camino Hospital was awarded the Outstanding Corporate Grant Maker Award at Silicon Valley Philanthropy Day by Association of Fundraising Professionals. We were recognized for the value we provide to our partners:

• "El Camino Hospital has taken a leadership role in facilitating close working relationships between its various community partners, to optimize their overall contributions to community health improvement."
• "El Camino Hospital has been at the forefront of corporate grant making, supporting innovative best practices models...The hospital takes an analytical and systematic approach to their Community Benefit efforts."

More recently we have been reaching out to our city government partners to ensure we have an ongoing dialog about our joint commitment to community health. We have presented at Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills and Cupertino City Councils in just the past 3 months.

We also look forward to working closely with LAFCO, we have been leaders in working with other Santa Clara County Districts to take advantage of the opportunity to place to District representatives of Santa Clara County Districts on the LAFCO board.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. Please answer each question in no more than 400 words. Direct references to opponents are not permitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: September 24, 2012 22:22
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