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The Guilds of Valley Children’s Healthcare announced today a $5 million endowment dedicated to transforming the health and wellbeing of the Valley’s children through the establishment of the Guilds Center for Community Health.

The Center will be the first of its kind in the Central Valley to link clinical care, community partners and the healthcare network’s current community health initiatives to improve the health of children where they live, learn and play. (valleychildrens.org)

Sonoma Valley Hospital will begin construction next month on a new diagnostic center, hospital officials announced on Tuesday.

The first phase in building its $21 million diagnostic center will include a new CT scanner, a larger waiting room for patients and the beginnings of refurbishing existing space that housed the old emergency department. (Sonomanews.com)

Zero hour 2 a.m.

It was early Friday morning, and most of the city was asleep when Kern Medical, Bakersfield’s only trauma center and teaching hospital pulled the switch, fired up what they consider the Cadillac of medical record keeping, the Ferrari of digital patient information — and began a new era. (Bakersfield.com)

Two Santa Rosa hospitals evacuated about 100 patients each this weekend out of “an abundance of caution” as the Kincade Fire continues to ravage Sonoma County. 

Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital began evacuating Saturday evening at 6:30 p.m. Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa, which also had started a voluntary evacuation Saturday night, came under a mandatory evacuation order early Sunday morning. (sacbee.com)

Montage Health directors and community members wore bubblegum pink hard hats as they broke ground on a new breast care center on Monday.

The groundbreaking ceremony marked the start of the construction of a 21,000-square-foot building at Montage’s Ryan Ranch campus.(montereyherald.com)

One thing will make veteran real estate developer Larry Wasem drop everything and head to Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital.

It’s an on-call job with no pay. And it’s a far cry from his decades-long work as managing partner at Airport Business Center, which has numerous properties throughout Sonoma County.

It’s the opportunity to cuddle an inconsolable baby in the neonatal intensive care unit. (Northbaybusinessjournal.com)

Dignity Health Memorial Hospital has received the Pathways to Excellence Re-Designation, a worldwide credential that emphasizes Memorial Hospital’s commitment to creating a healthy work environment for nurses to feel empowered and appreciated. (Bakersfield.com)

Bakersfield Heart Hospital will become the first hospital in the Central Valley to offer a new lung valve treatment for patients with severe COPD/emphysema.

The Endoscopic Lung Volume Reduction surgery is a minimally invasive procedure to help emphysema/COPD sufferers breathe easier without major surgery, according to Bakersfield Heart Hospital. (KBAK/KBFX)

Sierra View Medical Center will begin constructing a new skilled nursing facility in 2020.

In a statement issued by the hospital on Tuesday, the Sierra View District which manages the hospital has decided to replace the existing 35-bed distinct part skilled nursing faclity now located within the Sierra View Medical Center. (The Porterville Recorder)

Rural hospital closures increase patient mortality by nearly six percent, but urban closures have no measurable impact on patient outcomes, according to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. 
(Becker’s Hospital Review)

Valley Children’s extracorporeal life support (ECLS) program has received international recognition from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) as a Silver Level ELSO Award recipient. (The Business Journal)

California hospitals question 2030 earthquake standards (APNews.com)

UCSF Medical Center has been recognized among the nation’s elite hospitals in U.S. News & World Report’s 2019-2020 Best Hospitals survey, marking the 21st year that UCSF Health has been listed among the top 10 hospitals in the prestigious listings. (UCSF.org)

Sacramento County and Dignity Health are undertaking an $18.7 million effort to relieve pressure on the region’s psychiatric hospitals by opening a facility at Mercy San Juan Medical Center that will treat patients in behavioral health crisis for up to 23 hours.  (The Sacramento Bee)

A local hospital has received a new accreditation for critical brain injury and stroke specialty programs that help patients regain many of the skills lost from brain damage.

Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula received its three-year accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities International, a nonprofit organization. The designation applies to the hospital’s Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit, which now provides care for neurological conditions as well as rehabilitation for other injuries and illnesses.  (Monterey Herald)

Adventist Health Ukiah Valley received the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association’s Get With The Guidelines – Stroke Honor Roll Gold Quality Achievement Award. This award recognizes the hospital’s commitment to ensuring stroke patients receive the most appropriate treatment according to nationally recognized, research-based guidelines on the latest scientific evidence.  (The Ukiah Daily Journal)

Kaiser Permanente has helped usher about 300 homeless seniors off the streets of Oakland and into stable housing over the past six months — a milestone that means the healthcare giant is more than halfway to its ultimate goal.  (The Mercury News)

In recognition of its expertise in serving adults with congenital heart disease (CHD), Sutter Medical Center, Sacramento earned accreditation from the Adult Congenital Heart Association (ACHA), a nationwide organization focused on connecting patients, family members and healthcare providers to form a community of support and a network of experts with knowledge of CHD. It is the third accredited adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) program in California and the first in the greater Sacramento region.  (Cision PR Newswire)

Balloons adorned the newly installed signs at Adventist Health Tulare.

Parking lots were nearly full Wednesday morning as the hospital officially welcomed its new name and a new era for the Tulare Local Health Care District. 

A ceremony celebrated the finalization of the lease to Adventist Health and the approval of the name switch to Adventist Health Tulare.   (Visalia Times Delta)

Eastern Plumas Healthcare in Portola has a new CEO on board as of Jan. 3, and Todd Plimpton took a moment recently to introduce himself to the community.  (Plumas News)

As part of FOX40’s ongoing Capitol-to-Capitol coverage, Joe Khalil sits down with Dignity Health’s Senior Vice President of Operations Laurie Harting.

Harting discusses the importance of the Capitol-to-Capitol program and how it can help healthcare providers.  (Fox40)

Ginny Pacheco is one of the many residents who lived on Wheeler Road who comes back regularly to visit the spot where her home once stood. The entire neighborhood was decimated by the Camp Fire in November.

Since then, much of the debris has been cleared out.

“This is probably the last time I’ll see it,” Pacheco said. “Next time I come up, all of this will be gone.”  (Fox 40)

Preliminary figures released Wednesday from the biennial point-in-time count of the nation’s homeless population show that the number of homeless in Marin decreased by 7% between January 2019 and January 2017.  (Marin Independent Journal)

Tulare Regional Medical Center is no more.

The hospital is now officially known as Adventist Health Tulare, as Adventist began operating the facility this week under its own license. 

“A new name for your community’s hospital….Proudly introducing Adventist Health Tulare,” reads the hospital’s Facebook page.  (Visalia Times Delta)

Is it possible something as simple as a special cleanser could save a patient from getting a health care-associated infection?

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided to test the theory. It examined chlorhexidine (CHG), an antimicrobial cleansing agent used primarily to bathe patients hospitalized in the intensive care unit, to see if it could prevent health care–associated infections (HAIs), particularly antibiotic-resistant staph infections, known as MRSAs, or “superbugs.”  (NorthBay Business Journal)

A bottle of shampoo. A tube of toothpaste. These are simple things that many folks take for granted.

But they are much appreciated by human trafficking victims on the road to recovery and a fresh start in life.

As part of the hospital’s “No More” campaign, employees of Kaiser Permanente Fresno donated and collected enough personal hygiene products to fill more than 1,000 toiletry bags for Breakings the Chains, a local nonprofit that helps human trafficking victims. (GV Wire)

California had just weeks to get a program that used medication to treat opioid use disorder up and running after receiving $90 million in federal grants in 2017. So officials found a model that was already working in Vermont, and supersized it to fit the sprawling state.  (Politico)

Healthcare providers at Sutter Health’s Northern California campus will soon have access to an Epic EHR-integrated virtual assistant powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce the administrative burden of EHR use.

The not-for-profit health system recently announced it will collaborate with digital assistant solutions provider Suki to pilot the new health IT tool. Suki is a voice-enabled virtual assistant that uses voice commands from physicians in context to create clinically accurate notes within EHR systems.  (EHR Inteligence)

It’s been decades since San Francisco was ground zero for the AIDS epidemic, but for one population, it still is.

Viral suppression drugs have made HIV a survivable disease for many, but there is a major discrepancy when it comes to people who are marginally housed or homeless.

The new POP-UP clinic at UC San Francisco’s Ward 86 at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital(ZSFG) is aiming to correct this discrepancy.  (UCSF)

Listed below are the 102 rural hospitals that closed between Jan. 1, 2010, and March 19, 2019, as tracked by the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program.  (Becker’s Hospital Review)

The U.S. Army and Dignity Health Mercy and Memorial Hospitals signed a partnership agreement on Thursday.

The collaboration is part of the U.S. Army Partnership for Youth Success (PaYS) Program.  (Bakersfieldnow.com)

To paraphrase an oft-used adage that has been around for a long time: “If you want good things to happen in your community, get involved.”

That would be an important thought to consider in regard to the many changes taking place at Chester’s Seneca Hospital.  (Plumas News)

He doesn’t know it now but when Grayson James Wright is old enough to speak, he’ll have quite a story to tell about how he came into the world.

“Oh, it was terrifying,” said Kamber Wright, Grayson’s mother, who was one week away from her due date of November 15 and her husband Matthew was at work when the phone started ringing.  (KRCR News Channel)

Mark Twain Medical Center may see some changes in the coming months, due to the recent merger between Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI).  (Calaveras Enterprise)

St. Joseph Health has created a managed care network that brings together several local hospitals and more than 360 primary and specialty care physicians in Sonoma and Napa counties, the health care system announced Feb. 11.  (North Bay Business Journal)

Nearly 16 months ago a handful of people stood atop the three-story parking garage at Kaiser Permanente’s Santa Rosa hospital, awestruck as they witnessed flames from the Tubbs fire destroy their trailers at Journey’s End mobile home park.  (The Press Democrat)

Kaweah Delta Healthcare District has joined forces with Cleveland Clinic’s Heart & Vascular Institute, the No. 1 ranked heart program in the U.S.  (Fox 26)

A new Kaiser Permanente medical center will be coming to the downtown Sacramento area.  (13 CBS Sacramento)

Like many health systems, Kaiser Permanente, though admittedly a multibillion dollar organization, faces challenges when faced with the complex duality of both living within their means and delivering the best possible care and meaningful services. They use the dollars they get to provide that care and keep the lights on so to speak, and it all comes from the same “pot.”  (HealthcareFinance)

Adventist Health and Rideout experienced a year of growth in 2018. The hospital will build off of its successes as it looks to expand its facilities around Yuba-Sutter. 

Rick Rawson, president of Adventist Health and Rideout, said details as to what an expansion could look like still need to be fleshed out, which will likely take place over the next several months. He said the ultimate goal is to increase access to services for Yuba-Sutter residents, not just people living in Marysville.  (Appeal-Democrat)

It’s a step in a new direction for the health of Salinas residents now that the Blue Zones Project is officially coming to town.

The project is a national health initiative based on the health habits of people in the world’s “Blue Zones,” those areas where people live longer than average with good quality of life.  (Monterey County Weekly)

Facing an end-of-the-year deadline to have all patients moved out of its 87-year-old Depression-era Towers Building, San Joaquin General Hospital is anticipating the opening this summer of its new $41 million Acute Care Patient Wing.

Construction began in 2017 just south of the county-run medical center’s main entrance and is about 90 percent complete, according to David Culberson, the hospital’s chief executive officer.  (Recordnet.com)

Stanford Children’s Health plans to provide approximately 2,500 telehealth appointments — in which patients and their families can use devices such as cellphones and tablets to see Stanford Medicine physicians remotely — in 2019, making a more than twofold increase in use of the service.  (The Stanford Daily)

While San Francisco’s list of 10 largest employers is dominated by tech, across the bay in Oakland it’s all about health. The city’s top three employers are Kaiser Permanente (No. 1), Sutter Health (No. 2), and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital (No. 3). Together, these health care giants employ about 19,000 people in Oakland and more than 85,000 people in the Bay Area (Kaiser and Sutter rank third and fourth, respectively, on San Francisco’s 10 largest employers).  (San Francisco Business Times)

As the Paradise, California community slowly begins to heal following the apocalyptic devastation of the Camp wildfire last month, Adventist Health celebrated the reopening of its Feather River Health Center clinic with a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday. The town’s mayor, chamber of commerce and numerous community members were in attendance. The reopening came after road access to that portion of Skyway, a major conduit in and out of the town, was reopened by officials.  (Healthcare Finance)