DIRECTOR KATIE KANE HONORED FOR TWO DECADES’ SERVICE

REDWOOD CITY/April 4, 2012 — Celebrating two decades as an elected representative to the Sequoia Healthcare District, Director Katie Kane garnered colleagues’, co-workers’ and county government accolades April 4 — she even received congratulations from the White House.

The longest-tenured of the five-member healthcare district board with five elections under her belt, Director Kane has helped conceive or accomplish some of the district’s most significant initiatives:

• She and former Director Malcolm MacNaughton negotiated the development agreement by which ownership of Sequoia Hospital was transferred to Dignity Health and by which hospital revenue is shared with the district.

• She was instrumental in devising a partnership with the University of San Francisco, Cañada College and Sequoia Hospital that so far has helped more than 400 nurses earn baccalaureate degrees in nursing with many placed at Sequoia Hospital or in healthcare facilities within the district.

• She helped move the district into a partnership with the Health Plan of San Mateo which has helped produce the result that every child in the county under the age of 18 has health insurance.

• It was her idea to start a public medical clinic in the Redwood City area, an idea that led to a partnership with Samaritan House to operate it.

• She was board chair when the district began the HeartSafe program, which places automated external defibrillators in schools, public facilities, resident care facilities and other places where large numbers of people gather. Thus far HeartSafe has placed more than 300 AEDs throughout the community, along with a dozen of the latest life-saving cardiac emergency devices, the Lucas Chest Compress Device. HeartSafe has also trained more than 5,000 emergency responders and member of the public in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

• She is the incoming Chair of the state-wide Association of California Healthcare Districts (ACHD), a voluntary association actively involved in the legislative agenda of the state.

• She and Director Art Faro went to work on an idea advanced by Director Kim Griffin to see how Sequoia Healthcare District could fill in the health education, fitness and nutrition voids being created in the public school system by the state budget crisis. The outcome is the district’s successful Healthy Schools Initiative, a coordinated approach to health and nutrition in the public schools. Healthy Schools represents a three-year, $6 million commitment by the district to help keep school nurses, physical education program, nutrition and health programs in eight public school districts encompassing more than 27,000 students.

Director Kane was honored April 4 with presentations by San Mateo County Supervisor Don Horsley and his colleagues on the board, by Samaritan House Director Kitty Lopez, by Tom Peterson,. CEO of the Association of California Healthcare Districts and by President Barack Obama, who sent his congratulations.

To conclude, Director Kane was honored by her Sequoia Healthcare District colleagues with a cake and a gift.

Sequoia Healthcare District Director Katie Kane honored for two decades’ service

SEQUOIA HEALTHCARE DISTRICT APPROVES $6.8 MILLION IN 2012 GRANTS TO COUNTY HOSPITAL, NONPROFITS

 REDWOOD CITY, CA/May 3, 2012 — Sequoia Healthcare District directors approved a 2012-13 grant program of $1.34 million to a record 29 nonprofits, allocated $2.9 million to school health in eight public school districts, renewed its support of the San Mateo County Medical Center in the amount of $2 million and funded Samaritan House’s free Redwood City medical-dental clinic in the amount of $612,000 at a special meeting Wednesday.

Sequoia Healthcare District returns approximately $1.30 in community health programming for every dollar it collects in property taxes, using a combination of an average $8 million in taxes, profit sharing proceeds from Dignity Health, operator of Sequoia Hospital, and fund reserves, where necessary, to support more than $10 million in services. All administrative expenses are funded by earnings on investment and rental income.

The district’s Caring Community Grants program began a dozen years ago to fill in gaps in healthcare delivery to residents of central and southern San Mateo County; today it is a competitive annual process that involves community members and health care professionals who join a subcommittee of two healthcare district directors to evaluate scores of nonprofits and their programs.

Despite budgeting that has kept funding at about the same level over the past several years, the volume of applications for funding has grown significantly. This year, with $1.25 million allocated to spend, the district Grants Committee received a record 50 applications for a total request in excess of $4 million if all were funded. The $1.34 million authorized was $90,000 over the budgeted amount.

The committee recommended 29 grants to the board, which approved the list Wednesday night.

Caring Community grantees are required to submit detailed program proposals for evaluation, must document progress after six months of funding prior to receiving the next six months’ payment and must submit a final report at the end of the grant year.

The majority of those funded for the 2012-13 fiscal year grant cycle are repeat recipients and have shown accomplishment of district goals in the past.

Directors also approved funding of San Mateo County’s hospital and clinics in the amount of $2 million. This represents the sixth year of Sequoia Healthcare District funding for the Medical Center and clinics, facilities that together comprise the primary care provider of last resort for tens of thousands of San Mateo County residents.

Medical center CEO Dr. Susan Ehrlich reported that 20,319 Sequoia Healthcare District residents received care at the medical center in the 2011 calendar year. Healthcare district support represents medical treatment for about 830 residents a year, Ehrlich said.

In sum, Sequoia Healthcare District has funded the county hospital and clinics in the amount of $15.5 million in the six years ending in June, 2013.

The third item, the Healthy Schools Initiative, is a district-run program that was spun out of the grants program two years ago. At that time a significant portion of grant funding had been approved to help public school districts bring back school nurses that had been cut as a result of state and local school budget reductions.

Healthy Schools applies a coordinated health model intended to improve the health, nutrition and fitness of students in the schools. It now pays for wellness coordinators, school nurses, nutrition and physical education programs, school gardens and more in the Sequoia Union High School, Redwood City, San Carlos and Belmont-Redwood Shores school districts and supports programs in the Menlo Park, Woodside, Las Lomitas and Portola Valley school districts along with the San Carlos Learning Center.

Healthy Schools is a three-year demonstration program; the $2.9 million approved by district directors Wednesday takes it through the third year.

Next, district directors continued their support of Samaritan House’s Redwood City free medical-dental clinic, which the district founded. The $612,000 approved by the board Wednesday will help defray the cost of more than 5,000 medical and dental visits a year by district residents. Through the efforts of 22 volunteer physicians, 6 volunteer dentists, two volunteer physicians and more than 30 other volunteer support workers, the Samaritan House clinic keeps the cost per visit to $125, including medications. This despite providing a sophisticated array of medical services, from neurology to orthopedics, and dental services from oral surgery to dental prosthetics.

Proving that a variety of unfilled healthcare needs still remain to be addressed, directors heard two additional presentations that may lead to program funding in the future.

Sequoia Hospital gave a preliminary presentation for “incubator funding” of a comprehensive continuing care program at the hospital. According to Bill Graham, Sequoia Vice President of Physician and Business Development and Joann Kemist, Director of the Sequoia Hospital Foundation, this program would target patients who become vulnerable as they leave the hospital, either because they are alone, may have difficulty managing medications or chronic conditions or who may represent the potential for readmission if their care is not managed properly.

This would directly tie in hospital services with a number of nonprofit healthcare providers, including some already funded by the healthcare district. This “integrated” model, tentatively titled the Sequoia Hospital Homecoming Project, represents a step outside traditional hospital care.

The hospital representatives indicated they may be making a formal request for $1.5 in funding at a future district meeting.

Lastly, the Ravenswood Family Health Center presented background for a future request of $500,000 annually for three years to help meet a 79 percent increase in district residents who have availed themselves of clinic services over the past three years.

And the demand is only expected to increase.

According to figures provided by CEO Luisa Buada, the number of district residents served will increase from 2,400 next fiscal year to 3,000 by the end of 2015. Those residents will require 23,000 Ravenswood and associated clinic services and patient visits in 2015.

Following is the listing of Caring Community grant awards approved by directors Wednesday night.

Sequoia Healthcare District provides major funding to numerous non-profit community health organizations that directly assist more 40,000 women, children and seniors in the district, which includes the cities of Atherton, Belmont, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Carlos, Woodside, and portions of San Mateo and Foster City from Skyline Boulevard to the Bay.

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May 2 2012 Sequoia Board Agenda-Materials

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April 4 2012 SHCD Agenda_Materials

Grants Requests Exceed Historic High

REDWOOD CITY/March 9, 2012 — A record 62 potential applications for Sequoia Healthcare District 2012-13 community grant awards have been submitted to the district, with 41 applicants invited to follow up with formal requests, district CEO Lee Michelson has announced.

The previous record number of grant requests was last year’s 42. Of those, 27 grants were selected for funding.

Sequoia Healthcare District’s Caring Community Grant program is a competitive, structured system for matching a broad spectrum of registered charitable nonprofit providers to community healthcare needs. Community healthcare needs run the gamut from children’s health to juvenile and adult substance abuse treatment to daily feeding of homebound seniors, dental and clinical care, mental health programs, emergency food and shelter for families and more.

Sequoia Healthcare District’s program establishes priorities and requires a potential grantee to document what services it will provide, how, when and to how many district residents.

Grantees must follow up with progress reports documenting achievement at the six-month point before grant funding is extended for the balance of the year.

Grants will be given priority in these areas this year: Health Literacy, Food Security, Preventive Health Care and Behavioral Health.

All told, $2.4 million in grant funds have been requested this year. The district has budgeted $1.25 million in Caring Community funds for the year.

Applications are due March 23. A district Grants Committee will review requests and recommend awards to the full Sequoia Healthcare District board June 6.

Sequoia Healthcare District provides major funding to numerous non-profit community health organizations that directly assist more 35,000 women, children and seniors in the district, which includes the cities of Atherton, Belmont, Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Redwood City, San Carlos, Woodside, and portions of San Mateo and Foster City from Skyline Boulevard to the Bay.

45,000 SERVED BY DISTRICT CAN REST EASY

SAN MATEO, CA Feb. 1, 2012 — The 45,000 residents provided services by Sequoia Healthcare District — including more than 27,000 public school students — can rest easy. The district is in very good shape, continues to be able to return about $1.30 to the community in services for every dollar it collects in property tax and is innovating new ways to try to improve community health through primary care clinics, nonprofits and heart-related programs.

Those were the major points of District CEO Lee Michelson’s annual State of the District report to directors Wednesday night, covering 2011.

Here are the details:

• Eight million dollars earned in property tax from an area that includes portions of southern San Mateo and Foster City to Menlo Park and Atherton, Skyline to San Francisco Bay.

• Nine million, seven hundred thousand dollars in community funding, which includes a nursing education partnership with Cañada College and San Francisco State University, funding of 27 nonprofit organizations that provide everything from drug programs for juveniles to food for homebound seniors, and the internal HeartSafe program that provides automated external defibrillators and Lucas chest compress devices to the public and the Healthy Schools Initiative that is organizing eight public school districts to provide physical education, wellness programs and improved nutrition for 27,000 students.

• A stable, and modest, administrative overhead representing about six percent of expenditures ($600,000).

• Continued community outreach to guarantee that property tax-paying residents of the district know exactly what the district is doing in terms of programs and how it is investing their funds in community health.

Michelson enumerated the guiding administrative principles for the district, also.

• Target spending at least 100 percent of property tax revenues on programs

• Maintain low administrative overhead

• Do not build reserve funds, spending them on programming instead

• Communicate with the public and be transparent

• Use funds for maximum beneficial impact on the health of residents

• Innovate programs

• Support effective existing programs

• Benefit ALL Sequoia Healthcare District residents

Directors also received a 144-page report detailing the ways in which it is reaching out to the public, including a constantly-updated website, public events such as the annual Caring Community Awards reception where nonprofits are recognized, press releases, an annual report mailing, photography and advertising.

Sequoia Healthcare District/Sequoia Hospital Live Well Workshop for managing chronic illness

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Download pdf of Feb. 1, 2012 Board Meeting Agenda and Materials

Caring Community Grants

2012-13 Grant Cycle

Description and Preliminary Schedule

•Open to 501(c)3 nonprofits serving residents of the Sequoia Healthcare District

•Nonprofits may apply for up to three grants with a maximum of $250,000 total grants per organization per grant cycle.

•Administrative overhead must not consume more than 15 percent of grant award (85 percent for program services).

•Organizations may collaborate to submit one grant.

•Non-discrimination statement required as part of grant contract.

•When a nonprofit applies for a renewal grant the following process will be used: Mid-term report due at six months, in-person staff evaluation at nine months required to assure that program is on target to make goals.

•Preference given to grants that have other funders (district objective is to fund no more than 66 percent of program budget).

•Grantee should indicate the impact of reduced funding should district choose not to fund full request.

•Should grantee purchase outside evaluation of program impact, cost must be borne by organization or must be apportioned as part of 15 percent allowable overhead.

TIMELINE

Feb. 10, 2012 and Feb. 13, 2012 — Informational meetings held from 9 a.m. to noon at district headquarters, 525 Veterans Blvd., Redwood City

March, 2012 — Submittal of Letters of Intent by grant requestors

April, 2012 — District visits agencies

May, 2012 — District Grants Committee recommends grants to District Board of Directors for action

June, 2012 — 2012–13 Caring Community grantees approved by the board

Agenda

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Sequoia Healthcare District Agenda and Materials, Dec. 7, 2011