In the annual public meeting with SEARHC officials on April 6, Sitka residents listed what they see as systemic issues with the Native-owned health care nonprofit that provides medical and hospital services for all of Sitka and serves 25 other Southeast communities.

Sitkans expressed concerns and ideas on how the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium could improve its communications,  care coordination, elder care, telehealth, medical recordkeeping, billing, patient portal functionality and patient follow-up, among other topics.

SEARHC leaders and Sitka Community Health Council members collected notes on sheets of butcher paper while listening to feedback from about 40 participants, including many longtime SEARHC patients and medical professionals. 

The two-hour meeting at Centennial Hall was held in accordance with the 2019 sale agreement wherein the city sold Sitka Community Hospital, its assets and business to SEARHC.

Staff from Spruce Root, a Native-owned business development organization, helped facilitate the meeting and is to create a report on public input to be sent on to SEARHC leaders.

Meeting participant Susan Litman said after the two-hour session that she hopes the meeting’s facilitated format, which was new this year, will bring about solutions addressing the issues raised by members of the public.

“I’m hopeful, because nothing happened after the last one,” Litman said. 

At last year’s public meeting, residents brought up challenges with SEARHC medical care in a two-hour “listening session.”

JJ Carlson, a Health Council member, said “there’s frustration from community members that there wasn’t any action from the feedback people shared last year.”

After last year’s meeting, the board of directors received a copy of the meeting minutes summarizing the dozens of personal stories. Carlson said that format didn’t give the board clear recommendations for action.

“SEARHC has that board as its governing body, and they don’t quite do the listening to the same degree that (the Health Council does),” Carlson said. 

Carlson said that hiring facilitators and focusing on systemic issues in this year’s public meeting represents a “move towards having more robust documentation that could be absorbed better by the SEARHC board of directors.” 

At the April 6 meeting SEARHC Chief Medical Officer Dr. Cate Buley, chair of the Health Council, said the goal of the new format “is to translate concerns into recommendations and priorities.”

Buley said she and Chief Operating Officer Martin Benning will deliver reports from the public meeting to the SEARHC directors. 

“We will bring that forward, and those recommendations are going to help guide our further discussions and our review with the Health Council,” Buley said. 

After Buley’s opening remarks, participants gathered in three breakout groups: one focused on community needs, another emphasized the quality of patients’ experience at SEARHC, and the third looked at the systems-level approach to clinical practices, policy and strategy. 

Participants spent about 40 minutes discussing concerns in one topic area, before moving stations to consider challenges and propose solutions in a second topic area.

In a group discussing community needs, Sitkans said they need better access to primary care providers; that SEARHC could improve services by building partnerships with other local organizations; and that expanded services are needed in patient advocacy, elder care, home health care, long-term care and end-of-life care.

In discussions on patient access and experience, Sitkans stressed the need for centralized communication between SEARHC, out-of-network specialists and patients; clear processes for care coordination between case managers, specialists and primary care providers; an improved online patient portal; and better communication in general. 

“Telephone, email, the whole system is broken,” Health Council member Dr. David Lam said in regard to SEARHC communications. 

While discussing systems, policies and strategy, Sitkans said they’d like transparency from SEARHC as to its strategic plan.

Nicole Miller, who worked at SEARHC for four years, and recently moved on to lead the Brave Heart Volunteers nonprofit, said “morale is very low” among SEARHC hospital staff.

“I feel like SEARHC has opportunities to fix it, and I just wish they would,” Miller said.

Meeting participants questioned why many SEARHC administrators like Dr. Buley live in Juneau, rather than Sitka, and why CEO Charles Clement lives primarily in Utah.

Miller acknowledged these concerns and said she believes Clement did a great service for Sitka by securing the federal funding required for SEARHC to construct the new Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center facility.

“Now I just hope SEARHC uses it to its fullest potential and staffs it appropriately,” Miller said.

Participants also discussed how Clement is being paid more than $2.6 million a year, according to recent 2024 tax filings.

Commenting on the new hospital facility, Health Council member Lam said he’s “not sure why we’re spending $300 million to have the same number of hospital rooms that we have now.”  He expects SEARHC will eventually tear down the old hospital, which SEARHC took over from the U.S. Indian Health Service in 1986. 

A ceremonial opening of the new hospital and medical office building is set for April 23, and patients will be welcomed starting this summer, officials said. 

At the close of the two-hour meeting, note-takers for each of the breakout groups shared summaries of what they heard during discussions.

After the meeting Sitka resident Connie Kreiss told the Sentinel that she believes the new facilitated format “dilutes the process” of gathering public feedback.

The Health Council and SEARHC are responsible “to hear the concerns and figure out solutions,” Kreiss said. “It’s not our job to prioritize the concerns and come up with solutions. … They’re supposed to listen.” 

SEARHC pediatrician Dr. David Vastola told the Sentinel the new format could make room for more people to share their ideas. 

“It takes a certain kind of person to get up in front of a big group of people and speak, whereas somebody who’s maybe not so assertive will sit here and talk to you and share their good ideas,” Vastola said. 

Four-year Health Council member Susan Padilla told the Sentinel she was “skeptical” the format was going to work at the beginning, but felt the conversation was good. 

“We got a lot of good feedback,” Padilla said. “People were focused on the questions that they were asking, so I felt that that was good. … I’m not sure what direction or what path or how this will turn out, but this was another attempt to gain community communication for their health needs here in town.”

Alana Peterson, a Health Council member and executive director of Spruce Root, told the Sentinel today that the third-party meeting facilitators “are working on a report right now.”

Peterson said Health Council members have already received notes from the April 6 meeting and now “Spruce Root is preparing a report and then some recommendations for next steps for SEARHC based on what we heard, and based on how we understand and consider the best ways for organizations to be working in communities.”

The Sitka Community Health Council was established in 2019 as part of the city’s agreement selling Sitka Community Hospital to SEARHC.  No other Southeast Alaska community has a Health Council, or a mechanism by which to hold an annual meeting with SEARHC leaders. 

The Sitka Council meets quarterly, and each year opens a portion of its spring meeting to the public, according to the group’s charter. It sends all of its meeting minutes to the SEARHC board.

Current members of the Council are SEARHC officials Buley, Benning and hospital administrator William Spivey, PT; Sitka city administrator John Leach; Sitka Tribe of Alaska Tribal Council members Peterson and Woody Widmark; and at-large members Carlson, Lam, Amy Ainslie, Sally Tonkin and Susan Padilla.