Health Care Today

Providing For the Future of Health Care In Our Community

RN Forgivable Loan Program Review

Board Votes Yes

The Quality of Health Care

Community Resources

Health Care Today

Health Care Today is a forum for District Board members to openly discuss health care topics currently facing the District.

Periodically, we will update the page with new information and points of view. Please note that the opinions of the individual Board members are those of the author, and may or may not represent the views of other Board members.

If you would like to comment or give suggestions on current topics, please email us.

It is estimated that the OSHPD approval process will take approximately 18 months, and if followed by MPHS's commitment to build, and a favorable vote by the people of the District, construction could begin mid-to-late 2007. The estimated time for construction is four to five years, which would comfortably comply with state law (SB 1953) mandating that all 500 acute-care hospitals in California meet seismic standards or cease to function by 2013. Once the new hospital is built and open for patient-care, the existing hospital will be demolished.

The negotiations between the District and MPHS were protracted (six years), detailed, and culminated in agreements satisfactory to the respective Boards of the District and MPHS. The interface between public and private entities is always complex, as illustrated by this prolonged process. Much effort and expense were expended on both sides which included expert consultation, beginning with opinion, independently sought by both the District and MPHS, concluding that building a new hospital was preferable to retrofitting the existing structure, legal opinion, and copious input from the public, citizen groups, nurses and physicians, and local officials. Prior to the District vote, six public meetings were held explaining the agreements and soliciting public comment. The Board listened carefully to these comments, including detailed questions raised by the Peninsula Hospital Guardians and by the San Mateo County Counsel, and responded by adopting several of the suggestions in last-minute changes in the agreements, and answering, to the best of its ability, the concerns expressed.

In addition to gaining a new hospital, guaranteed to provide essential (core) services including round-the-clock emergency, surgical, medical, pediatric, radiology, obstetric, and laboratory capability, the District will have increased oversight over hospital operations, return of five properties previously given to MPHS, dismissal of a law suit previously brought by the District against MPHS, autonomy in the uses to which it chooses to put its five acre portion of the 26-acre property (except for competing with MPHS in core services), and a rent payment to the District of $1,500,000.00 per year, adjusted at three year intervals for inflation. MPHS will have a 50-year lease on prime Burlingame property, and the opportunity to run a non-profit hospital operation in the District.

The District chose to negotiate these agreements with MPHS, a local affiliate of Sutter Health, a Sacramento-based entity which operates some 20 non-profit hospitals in Northern California. Rather than put out a Request for Proposal (RFP) for other bids on the project, the District Board chose MPHS because it has an existing lease arrangement with MPHS going out to 2015, acknowledges its proven hospital management expertise, recognizes its independence and its local control by a Hospital Board of district residents, and the benefits which accrue from the institutional and financial strengths of Sutter.

Preliminary construction has already begun. One crucial step prior to new hospital construction is the re-routing of the large water main which carries water from Crystal Springs Reservoir to the City of San Francisco, and which runs through District property and must be re-routed to make way for new hospital construction. Water supply to the City can be interrupted only during the winter season, requiring that the re-routing take place before mid-February, 2006, or the project will be delayed for another year. Because of the inflationary pressures in the hospital construction industry in California, given the many hospitals which must all be built in the next several years, and the delays caused by the OSHPD approval process, planning and preliminary construction is proceeding according to schedule. Rent payments to the District will commence with the beginning of construction of the garage, scheduled to take place in the next months.

The District Board is pleased with the agreements and looks forward with confidence and anticipation to having a new hospital for the people of this District.