Something that struck me at both of SNI’s recent convenings on primary care access and maternal and child health was how the energy of our public health care system members continued to build from morning to afternoon. Attendees were especially eager to take what they learned back home to their organizations.
I’ve been thinking about why that energy felt so significant. California’s public health care systems are carrying enormous financial and operational burdens, even as their patients’ needs grow. Spending time learning alongside peers who face these same pressures doesn’t solve every problem, of course. But it can make those burdens feel lighter and the hurdles more surmountable as systems hear about practical and achievable ways to improve care.
This makes the theme of our December 2–4 CAPH/SNI Annual Conference in Napa, Resilience Reimagined: Transforming Pressure into Progress, especially fitting. We’ll examine federal and state health care policy changes, including those resulting from H.R. 1, and how systems can respond to protect patient care and access.
Especially now, I’m looking forward to being with our CAPH/SNI community and experiencing the energy and camaraderie that come from being together. I hope to see you in Napa! You can register here.
Giovanna Giuliani
Executive Director
California Health Care Safety Net Institute
Rethinking primary care to expand patient access
Dozens of public health care system leaders gathered in Oakland last month for SNI’s convening on strengthening primary care access. Every seat was filled, with participants focused on finding practical ways to improve care for patients.
Three systems shared how operational changes to scheduling, patient messaging, and care teams can benefit patients and clinicians, and how they’re putting these changes into practice.
- Riverside University Health System: Mahbuba Khan, MD, discussed how the system redesigned appointment schedules, replacing standard 20-minute visits with 15- and 30-minute appointments. These changes helped increase the number of well-child appointments the system could offer by 80% and obstetric appointments by 20%, while reducing new-patient appointment wait times by 38%. Among the reasons for success, Khan highlighted bringing clinicians and frontline staff together for several days at the outset to redesign schedules, then evaluating utilization weekly and tweaking as needed.
- Santa Clara Valley Healthcare: Cheryl Pan, MD, and Clifford Wang, MD, explained how the system took 70% of patient messages off the plate of 15 primary care clinics, freeing up clinicians and frontline staff to focus on patient visits. This involved changing how messages were routed and creating a centralized team of nurses, medical assistants, and physicians to handle them.
- LA Health Services: Sylvia Martin, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, CPCHE and Christopher Brown, MD, discussed an ambulatory redesign to reorganize care teams and standardize patient messaging, care management, and care coordination across clinics. The goals include ensuring patients receive care from the right team members, reducing unnecessary demands on clinicians’ time, and providing more consistent service across primary and specialty care, regardless of clinic location.
Experts from Acuvance Coker also provided evidence-based best practices for reducing no-shows, easing EHR inbox burden, and building effective care team models.
SNI will continue bringing members together to improve primary care efficiency and patient access. We’ll build on this work with an upcoming convening focused on emergency department efficiency in early 2027.
Bringing diverse expertise together in maternity care
Presenters fielded an overflow of questions from more than 60 public health care system leaders at SNI’s latest maternal and child health convening, held in Oakland in September.
The discussion focused on how systems and community-based providers are working together to creatively optimize the maternity care workforce and better serve mothers and babies:
- SisterWeb and UCSF: SisterWeb’s doula leaders Marlee-I Mystic and Alli Cuentos presented alongside Katherine Brown, MD, of the Black Wellness Clinic at UCSF’s Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and shared how doulas and clinicians are working as one multidisciplinary team to care for Black and Brown families. They described how doulas are bringing clinicians valuable feedback from patients that might not otherwise reach them, helping improve the birthing experience.
- Alameda Health System and UC San Diego Health: Laurel Bernstein, CNM and Eva Goodfriend-Reaño, CNM of Alameda Health System and Anne Cooper, MSN, CNM of UC San Diego Health discussed how a team culture in which physicians recognize midwives as trusted clinical experts is key to successfully integrating them into maternity care.
- Communi-T and O.Community Doulas: Ithiopia McKinney, who leads both organizations, described how their mobile clinics bring midwives, doulas, community health workers, and care managers together around families to advance birth equity, rather than requiring them to navigate multiple services on their own.
The convening moderator Dr. Sayida Peprah-Wilson, PsyD, PMH-C of Diversity Uplifts, Inc., and Amelia J. Cobb of the California Health Care Foundation also shared their insights on building a more diverse and collaborative maternity care community. The event was part of SNI’s Advancing Maternal and Child Health Quality Improvement Learning Series.
AI Forum: using AI to improve efficiency
How can AI help public health care systems address their most pressing needs for improved patient access, efficiency, and productivity?
That question is at the heart of this year’s AI Forum, “Utilizing AI in Driving Operational Efficiency,” on December 2 in Napa, part of the CAPH/SNI Annual Conference.
Open to all CAPH/SNI members, the forum will include a presentation on what the latest research reveals about where AI is delivering results, a moderated panel with system leaders at different stages of AI implementation, an audience Q&A, and a networking lunch.
- Our featured speaker, Lisa Rotenstein, MD, MBA, Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Director of Ambulatory Quality and Safety at UCSF Health, will distill the research on AI’s benefits and risks and discuss what remains unknown and where initial AI investments might deliver the greatest value. A primary care physician and nationally recognized, prolific researcher, she examines how technology affects clinical practice, physician workloads, and care delivery.
- A panel of leaders from public health care systems will share lessons from their AI work, from ambient scribes to population health tools. They include:
-
- Andrea Daugherty, Chief Information and Digital Transformation Officer, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center
- A leader from a third CAPH/SNI member system
- Moderating the panel will be Amy Sitapati, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, Population Health, UC San Diego Health, a practicing physician with hands-on experience developing AI and predictive analytics tools.
Register for the CAPH/SNI Annual Conference here.
More to look forward to at the CAPH/SNI Annual Conference
Beyond the AI Forum and discussions of Medicaid policy and national and state politics, the CAPH/SNI Annual Conference will feature:
- Robert M. Wachter, MD: The nationally recognized physician, author, and chair of UCSF’s Department of Medicine will deliver a keynote address.
- Partnerships to protect patient coverage and access: The session “Medi-Cal in the H.R. 1 Era” will focus on how health systems, health plans, community organizations, and county agencies can work together to help patients retain their Medi-Cal coverage and access to care.
- Jonathan Fisher, MD: The cardiologist and organizational well-being leader will discuss leadership, well-being, and resilience during difficult times.
- CAPH/SNI Quality Leaders Awards: Our annual luncheon will celebrate outstanding initiatives by member public health care systems to advance high-quality, equitable patient care.
See the full conference schedule and register here.