SCOTTS VALLEY – Palo Alto Medical Foundation CEO Dr. Larry DeGhetaldi on Monday night owned up to the fact that the community was not consulted before a decision was made to move urgent care services out of Scotts Valley in approximately a month.
“That is a fair point,” DeGhetaldi responded to commenters during the Zoom public meeting who inferred the community’s “sense of abandonment” may have been lessened by an invitation to weigh in. “We don’t have a good vehicle (for outreach). We have a local community board and I will just say we will continue to double our efforts to engage the community with different decisions.”
Upon the Sentinel reporting on the change in mid-June, a Sutter Health representative sent a brief statement that the decision was a result of the regular assessment of service offerings in order to better use resources to meet the changing needs of patients. When Rep. Anna Eshoo spoke against the decision a few weeks later, Sutter sent the same statement.
DeGhetaldi said that conversations had taken place with political figures such as Eshoo and Supervisor Bruce McPherson, who sat in on the meeting, when they had conveyed concerns from their constituents. The Monday meeting was an effort to do the same with patients who had yet to work through their qualms.
“Since Sutter Health’s community meeting on (Monday), which I asked them to hold, I’ve received calls and emails from constituents who are understandably upset that they will have to spend 45 minutes or more stuck in traffic to make it to the nearest urgent care center,” Eshoo said, contradicting the PAMF doctors on Tuesday afternoon. “The community depends on the urgent care services in Scotts Valley remaining accessible and convenient, and I hope Sutter Health won’t turn its back on them.”
The main message during the meeting is that the plan will be executed. Beginning Aug. 30, the Scotts Valley clinic will be a primary care-focused facility open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Patients who want to be seen on nights and weekends will need to travel to Westside Urgent Care in Santa Cruz. Westside Urgent Care has been closed during the pandemic but will reopen at the end of August to serve its purpose.
“There is a primary care shortage throughout Santa Cruz County, particularly on the Highway 9 corridor and in Scotts Valley,” the CEO said to set the scene of why the urgent care services would move to Santa Cruz. “This is a time when urgent care is evolving. We do have three other urgent care centers in Santa Cruz County, which is a fair amount.”
DeGhetaldi and his colleagues Dr. Rebecca Barker and Dr. Christopher Bernardi, local primary care physicians, did maintain that the decision was neither financial nor regional but strategic. Bernardi said in his experience, the Scotts Valley clinic has a tone that feels more like family medicine than urgent care.
“This was initiated by local physicians, it was not a Sutter Health top-down or Bay Area PAMF decision,” DeGhetaldi said. “We totally understand what the Fish Hook (ramp) traffic is or accessing Westside. We totally understand that there is an inconvenience factor. We understand that the Boulder Creek community, in particular, is far away from health care facilities, whether it’s going north to Los Gatos or south to Santa Cruz.”
Recruitment for three new primary care physicians that will work out of Scotts Valley began two months ago, Barker said. Those three physicians will handle approximately 5,000 new patients.
“In the physician world, you can’t start recruiting until you have the space to put the doctor in,” she said. “It’s a slow process.”
Barker said because of the intensity of daytime work, it is unfair to promise that physicians in Scotts Valley will always be able to offer same-day appointments — a concern listed by numerous commenters during the Q&A.
“One of our other challenges is primary care retention,” Barker said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to promise that primary care doctors will work weekend or evening hours but there will be a constant reassessment of our ability to see our patients, I’ll promise you that.”
Anyone with questions or concerns about the service and location changes can email cowanl@sutterhealth.org.
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PAMF stands strong on decision to move urgent care services out of Scotts Valley - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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