What’s next for 2 SLO County hospitals acquired by Adventist Health? CEO shares vision

It’s not every day a hospital changes hands — much less two.

Friday marked the first day two San Luis Obispo County hospitals were officially under the Adventist Health umbrella. Going forward, San Luis Obispo’s Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center and Templeton’s Twin Cities Community Hospital will now have new names to reflect their new owners: Adventist Health Sierra Vista and Adventist Health Twin Cities.

As the $550 million deal with Tenet Healthcare closed Friday, Adventist CEO Kerry L. Heinrich sat down with The Tribune to share his thoughts on the purchase, the future of the local hospitals and the healthcare industry as a whole.

Heinrich’s primary message? Adventist is coming in ready to listen to and address the needs of the San Luis Obispo County community.

“I think our most important quality is the desire to listen to the community, listen to what the needs are, listen to how we can better meet the needs of the community,” he said. “That’s easy to say — but very hard to do effectively. But that’s what we will be focused on here.”

Adventist Health, which is headquartered in Roseville, encompasses more than 440 “sites of care,” according to its website, including 28 acute care facilities. It has roughly 38,000 employees across those facilities, located in California, Oregon and Hawaii.

Adventist plans tech changes to make patient access easier, CEO says

Heinrich acknowledged there would likely be some challenges from the outset.

“It’s easy for me to say the patient should notice no difference, but healthcare is complicated,” he said. “Adventist Health contracts with every single major payer in California. But for me to say it will be seamless is a function of computer systems and transitioning to a new computer system and making sure that we try to solve problems for patients.”

Heinrich said the company has some planned changes to help remove “friction” from the process of patients trying to schedule appointments, get access to records and more. He said the entire company will be transitioning to a new computer system across the next two years to make that access more user friendly.

“Myself, when I go even to our own system, and I go through the process, I think, ‘Man, this should be easier,’” he said. “And I’m working very hard on that question.”

Meanwhile, Heinrich said Adventist plans to prioritize its workers and ensure they are appropriately taken care of. The acquisition was designed so that local employees would transfer from Tenet to Adventist.

“I would say our No. 1 priority is our people, our employees, those that are part of our system,” he said. “Because if we take care of our people ... our people will take care of our patients.”

He added: “That is the face of Adventist Health, and that is the hands and feet of the people who will take care of the patients.”

Will faith-based hospital group impact reproductive, LGBTQ+ care?

One area that patients shouldn’t expect any changes is in the type of care they have access to, specifically when it comes to reproductive health, LGBTQ+ care and end-of-life care.

Heinrich reaffirmed that despite Adventist being a faith-based organization, those principles would not impact the type of care available to San Luis Obispo County residents.

“So yes, we’re faith-based,” he said. “For us, what that means is we care about all people, all faiths, all backgrounds, people who have no faith. Our mission is to serve.”

Applying that to reproductive rights, Heinrich said, “There is nothing in our organization that would get between a woman and her treating physician.”

“We view that as a sacred relationship between the woman and her treating physician,” he said. “And we don’t insert ourselves in that.”

Members of the LGBTQ+ community can also expect that same commitment, he said, noting that both Sierra Vista and Twin Cities have previously been certified as LGBTQ Healthcare Equality Leaders, meaning workers have received the training to become an affirming healthcare organization.

Adventist plans to re-up that certification, he said.

What issues are facing healthcare providers in California?

Beyond just San Luis Obispo County, Heinrich has his eyes on healthcare issues impacting most of the western United States — which makes sense given Adventist Health hospitals span from East Los Angeles into Northern California, Oregon and Hawaii.

Chief among those is the question of how to provide care in underserved areas, especially in a time when it already feels that hospitals are overwhelmed, he said.

“How do we reshape the system so that those in underserved areas or those that have had traditional health disparities — how do we actually effectively serve these populations?” he said. “It’s easy to talk about, but the real question is, how can we work together across the state — really, across the nation — to say we’re not going to just talk about these issues? How can we effectively solve them?”

Heinrich said this specifically means finding ways to help those entering California without legal permission who need medical care.

“At the end of the day, a woman who is pregnant and needs emergency care for that delivery — it doesn’t matter what the problems are. She needs help now,” he said. “I think it’s our responsibility to figure out with the Legislature, with policymakers, how do we make that happen and sustainably make that happen?”

What changes are in store for recently acquired SLO County hospitals?

Heinrich noted it is still early on in the transition — “we have done this transaction in a very compressed time frame,” he said — so he did not have a lot of information yet on potential changes coming to the two San Luis Obispo County hospitals in the coming years.

“The honest answer is I just have to understand the current capabilities of the hospital better,” he said.

Heinrich noted he and Adventist Health leadership plan to sit down with local administrators, medical staff, nursing leadership and more to discuss the needs of Sierra Vista and Twin Cities.

“I can tell you without question one of my core goals will be how do we expand service lines that are needed by the community,” he said.

Prior to the announcement of the “once-in-a-lifetime” type of deal back in February, Heinrich noted he hadn’t spent much time in San Luis Obispo County, though the company had been keeping eyes on opportunities to expand into the area.

He still hasn’t had much opportunity to explore the Central Coast beyond his hotel and inside the two hospitals’ walls, he said — but what he has seen is enough to prompt an inter-company joke.

“I love it here. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he laughed. “The joke is I may move corporate headquarters to San Luis Obispo.”