North Bay Business Journal

From Marin to Mendocino, current hospital projects represent at least $550 million worth of combined construction spending.

And it’s a number that will double if and when one of the largest projects — the $500 million rebuild of Marin General Hospital — gets off the ground.

Kaiser Permanente employees in California, including about 4,700 in the North Bay, voted to stay with their current trade union, rather than switching, according to results announced Thursday afternoon by the National Labor Relations Board.

Voting began last week in the long-running battle for union control at Kaiser Permanente facilities throughout California, with some 45,000 workers set to choose — for the second time in nearly three years — between rivals Service Employees International Union’ United Healthcare Workers West and the National Union of Healthcare Workers.

WINDSOR — Kaiser Permanente on Thursday said it would give Alliance Medical Center a $60,000 grant to help the nonprofit health center’s expansion at its Windsor site.

Kaiser Permanente has earned accreditation for its Santa Rosa Medical Center Family Residency Program, which was developed to attract and retain more physicians to the region in lieu of national shortages.

Value-Based Purchasing is a Medicare program started in January that seeks to hold hospitals accountable for the care they provide.

Last year, Medicare rolled out penalties for hospitals that have too many returning patients within a month.

This chart shows the effect of the two programs combined.

A date has been set for a do-over in labor elections between the National Union of Healthcare Workers and Service Employees International Union–United Healthcare Workers West at Kaiser Permanente facilities in Northern California, including more than 4,700 workers in the North Bay.

Three North Bay hospitals received “A” grades for patient safety from the Leapfrog Group, considered the industry standard for hospital surveys. Kaiser Permanente hospitals in San Rafael and Santa Rosa and St. Joseph Health-operated Petaluma Valley Hospital each received the ranking from the Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits. …

Sound Physicians, a Tacoma-based hospitalist organization, announced an agreement to provide comprehensive hospitalist services at Sonoma Valley Hospital. …

Operation Access, a nonprofit whose mission is to mobilize a network of medical volunteers, hospitals and community health centers to provide access to surgeons for low-income and uninsured people, recently held its celebration of volunteers at Lagunitas Brewery in Petaluma. …

Partnership Health Plan of California recently honored the Petaluma Health Center for achieving 100 percent of the nonprofit, managed Medi-Cal health plans’ goals. …

Sutter Health announced the appointment of Stephen Nolte as chief executive officer of Sutter’s recently announced health plan, which is currently in development in Sacramento. …

St. Helena Hospital recently raised $1.5 million at its annual foundation gala held at Silver Oak Cellars in Oakville. …

State Sen. Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina, plans to introduce legislation that would expand the powers of nurse practitioners, pharmacists and other health care workers as a means to address a shortage of primary care physicians, a problem that experts have long warned will be exacerbated by health care reform. …

The political and legal challenges to federal health reform may finally be settled with the reelection of President Obama and the Supreme Court’s upholding of the Affordable Care Act, but, even with that seeming sense of finality, a host of challenges lay ahead for all levels of the industry.

Dennis Lum is vice president of channel strategy, sale operations and performance for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. His current areas of focus include broker strategy, broker development, and execution for health care reform and private exchanges, among other areas. He began his career with Kaiser by managing the Proposal Development Department for Northern California.

As the health care sector moves toward wide-scale adoption of electronic medical records, the potential for personal-data breaches has significantly increased, creating a precarious legal environment for health plans and providers while class-action firms are carving out a lucrative niche in California.

Woodruff-Sawyer & Company recently announced the launch of BizInsure, a website that aims to make shopping for commercial insurance easier. …

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans is expected to increase by 11 percent in the next year, and premiums will remain steady, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. …

The National Committee for Quality Assurance ranked Kaiser Permanente Northern California as the eighth-best commercial plan in the country and the third-best Medicare plan in its most recent survey, Kaiser announced recently. …

Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed Assembly Bill 53, which requires the state’s top 200 insurance companies to report on their efforts to procure goods and services from businesses owned by minorities, women and disabled veterans. …

The California Legislature recently agreed to shift some 880,000 lower-income children from the Healthy Families program to Medi-Cal, which reimburses providers at a lower rate. That would reduce annual patient reimbursement to Santa Rosa Community Health Centers and West County Health Centers. …

Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa and Kaiser Foundation hospitals in Santa Rosa and Vacaville were the three North Bay facilities on latest list of the nation’s top performers in “key quality measures” by The Joint Commission, the leading accreditor of U.S. health care organizations. …

Northern California Center for Well-Being on Sept. 14 held its annual “Celebration of Dreams,” honoring local health care professionals and individuals for improving overall health in the region: Amy’s Kitchen, Gary Pace of West County Health Centers, Zuli Baron of St. Joseph Health, Andrea Michelsen of Kaiser Permanente and Hannah Early, a student at Analy High School. …

Two Petaluma orthodontists recently purchased a 7,500 square-foot former Wells Fargo branch at 301 Washington St. and plan to remodel it for their private practice. …

North Bay Cancer Alliance, a Santa Rosa-based nonprofit, launched a new website, a new brand and renewed focus on expanded community programs. …

Western Health Advantage has filed for an expansion of its business into Marin and Sonoma counties, where it hopes to partner with the Marin-Sonoma IPA and much of the region’s hospitals in offering a new health plan for employers and individuals

Walt Mills, a family practice physician in Sonoma County for nearly three decades, was recently named the incoming president of the Sonoma County Medical Association.

Dr. Mills recently shared his thoughts on a number of topics with the Business Journal, from health care reform to the primary care physician shortage to the evolving local health care scene.

SANTA ROSA — Kaiser Permanente today said it will distribute a round of grants totaling $660,000 to 11 community clinics across Northern California to help them “increase their ability to connect patients to important community and public resources.”

A North Bay organization in the latest round of grants is Petaluma Health Center.

The Marin Community Foundation will help oversee a philanthropic effort on multiple sclerosis research, according to Jansssen Research & Development, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which established the fund. …

Dr. Michael Caccavale, an interventional radiologist, has joined Redwood Regional Medical Group in Santa Rosa. He graduated from the University of Arizona with a BS in physiology and public health. …

Sutter Medical Foundation announced that board-certified urologist Dr. Kadee Thompson has joined the foundation in Vacaville. …

The Northern California Center for Well-Being said it will offer technical assistance for implementation of Sonoma County’s new smoking ordinance, which will prohibit smoking in multi-unit residences in unincorporated areas of the county. …

Both Marin General Hospital and Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital received “A” grades on the Hospital Safety Score from The Leapfrog Group, an independent national nonprofit run by employers and other large purchasers of health benefits. …

Marin General Hospital received certification from the Joint Commission for its stroke program and, for the second year in a row, was given the Stroke Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award from the American Heart Association. …

Education Fresh Starts Culinary Academy, a project of Homeward Bound of Marin, has received a $30,000 grant to refine and enhance its training program with updated curriculum and a new job coach. The grant from Catalyst Kitchens, an affiliate group for culinary social enterprise businesses, is supported by the Walmart Foundation and will allow Fresh [...]

A unique summer algebra academy pioneered in Santa Rosa has grown throughout the North Bay, and organizations as far away as Arizona are expressing interest in duplicating the public-private partnership that works to expose English language-learners to real-world applications for math.

SANTA ROSA — The Family Medicine Residency Program at Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa announced its incoming class of 2015, selecting 12 medical school graduates out of 618 applicants — about half of the nation’s 1,200 plus applicants in family medicine.