Board Gives Go-Ahead for Reorganizing County Health System

Riverside County’s public healthcare system will have a fresh look and a new structure under plans approved Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.

“What we’re doing is the right thing at the right time,” board Chairman Marion Ashley said. “This new integrated system will enable us to meet the needs of our constituents, better than we did before.”

The board voted 5-0 to authorize Riverside County Regional Medical Center CEO Zareh Sarrafian to hold the newly created position of Health System Executive Officer -- or as one observer dubbed it, “health czar.”

Sarrafian’s responsibilities will include consolidating, under one managerial umbrella, disparate components of the county healthcare network.

Supervisors also authorized the Executive Office to proceed with rebranding RCRMC, along with the county’s 10 community-based family health centers and other primary and outpatient clinics -- all of which in the near future will collectively operate as the “Riverside University Health System.”

“This will better reflect our role as one quality patient-centered system,” Sarrafian told the board. “We need to integrate into an overall healthcare system, with one voice working within the entire continuum of care.”

The consolidation and branding efforts arose from research conducted by Chicago-based Huron Consulting Inc., which was hired in 2013 at a cost of roughly $27 million to develop strategies for making the deficit-plagued RCRMC financially stable and an attractive option for patients with private insurance.

The Moreno Valley hospital’s largest clientele in the past has been the uninsured and those on state-provided Medi-Cal.

“Are there quality of care issues? Yes,” Sarrafian said. “But we will continue to improve. Constituents need to know that the county hospital is no longer just for the indigent. We will do that, but we’re expanding our care. Everything is not rosy. We’re still playing catch-up. But we have something here to be proud of, and I believe constituents will flock to it.”

Several speakers expressed opposition to the Department of Mental Health being absorbed into the new healthcare delivery system, citing concerns about the loss of authority of longtime agency director Jerry Wengerd, who was universally praised for setting high standards.

“Making this change is terrible,” said Georgia Smith, who serves on the county Behavioral Health Commission. “The only person you want running mental health is Jerry Wengerd. He has made sure things are run properly.”

Another commission member, Richard Devine, worried whether mental health programs would “remain intact” under new leadership.

“There are legitimate concerns that we haven’t had time to discuss,” he told the board.

Sarrafian replied that mental health was “dear to my heart” after spending more than a decade as the top administrator at Loma Linda University Medical Center, with which RCRMC has established a partnership.

“Mental health has been at a disadvantage in the county,” he said. “Integration and coordination are part of the continuum of care.”

There were also critics of the new healthcare network’s new brand. Temecula resident Paul Jacobs scoffed that Riverside University Health System “sounds more like a health clinic for university students.”

“The county medical center is not, and never will be, Kaiser Permanente,” Jacobs said, adding that the proposed health system logo, featuring four androgynous multi-colored figures arranged in no particular order, was reminiscent of “an accident that happened while trying to refill a printer cartridge.”

Supervisor John Benoit said the debate over a logo could go on “for another three years” and it was past time to set a new course to enhance the county health system’s image and efficiency.

“We need an integrated system. It’s a huge challenge, but no one is more suited to it than Zareh Sarrafian,” Benoit said. “The proposal does not do away with mental health. It takes what’s there and makes it more closely integrated with other operations. We should have been where we are now a year ago. We can’t wait any longer.”

Sarrafian said the rebranding and integration process will take months.

In January, the board approved a $195,000 contract with Irvine-based Johnson Gray Advertising Inc. to handle marketing and website design services for the health system in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. The agreement left open the option of renewing with Johnson Gray over the next four years.

Sarrafian said the county hospital and associated clinics will be featured in billboards, print advertisements, banners and posters.

“We will be showing the public our ability and expansion of services, highlighting quality of care and many years of service,” he said.

Along with Loma Linda, RCRMC has partnerships with several other entities, including the UC Riverside School of Medicine.

--City News Service; Image Patch Archive

Also on Patch:

• Students Taken to Hospital After Fireworks Incident
• California’s 6,000 Sex Offender Parolees Getting Looser Restrictions
• Health Officials Warn of Raw Milk’s Risks After Series of Illnesses
• Attorney General Seeks to Block ‘Utterly Reprehensible’ Initiative Allowing the Killing of Gays