Santa Cruz County Looks To Restart Community: Coronavirus

SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, CA — Santa Cruz County is working with a consultant to help officials draft a plan to restart local life while minimizing the spread of the new coronavirus.

Margaret Lapiz, who has specialized in health care operations and strategy for 25 years, will lead up the SAVE Lives effort to increase testing capacity, quarantine and isolation services, and contact tracing to help public health officials determine with whom COVID-19 patients may have interacted, the county said in a news release.

"These services are essential to reopening workplaces, community services and schools until a coronavirus vaccine is widely available," the county said.

Santa Cruz County wants to continue flattening the curve — or ensuring that the number of COVID-19 patients does not exceed hospital demand — and jumpstart the economy, but safeguards must be in place, Health Services Agency Director Mimi Hall said in the news release.

Leaders, business owners, health care workers, teachers and members of the public must band together to protect public health as the county looks to restart the community, said Community Foundation CEO Susan True in the news release.

Lapiz will work with the County Health Services Agency, but will be hired by Community Foundation Santa Cruz County. The foundation has secured funding for the community recovery plan and will also help pay for additional testing and contact tracing efforts.

Lapiz has previously worked with the county and Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust in an effort to see whether they could take over the Watsonville Community Hospital, which was bought by Halsen Healthcare last year.

Lapiz was an executive vice president of The Permanente Group and oversaw an organizational restructuring involving $14 billion in annual revenue, 9,000 physicians and 38,000 employees, the county said. She most recently worked helped expand executive leadership programs at Netflix and the Aspen Institute.

Lapiz holds masters degrees in business and public health from the University of California, Berkeley.