Sansum Clinic – Sutter Health

On October 2, 2023, Sansum Clinic became part of Sutter Health, a significant milestone that altered Sansum’s then 103-year history as the largest independent nonprofit outpatient healthcare organization between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay. The new relationship, cemented after a 15-year courtship between the equally venerable organizations, was created to take advantage of the economies of scale and the capabilities that size can bring. 

One year after finalizing its partnership with the larger integrated health system that is also a nonprofit, Sansum and Dr. Kurt Ransohoff – the local clinic’s longtime CEO and Chief Medical Officer who now serves as Sutter Health Greater Central Coast Division President – have been charting the progress in expanding access to care.

Sansum Clinic will have hired nearly 40 new clinicians by the end of 2024, half of whom are advanced practice clinicians (nurse practitioners or physician assistants), providing patients with greater access to primary care in addition to several specialties. 

“We’re proud of the number of new people that we have had the ability to bring in,” Ransohoff said. “Normally, it might be five to 10 people in a year, replacing staff who retire and some modest growth. Forty is huge. But it’s also the kind of doctors – ones who can address real shortages in areas such as primary care and dermatologists.” 

Bumping up the number of primary care clinicians makes a massive difference in terms of how long new patients are waiting to schedule a first visit to establish care at Sansum Clinic. The growth has allowed the clinic to expand weekday hours and add weekend hours, which together have recently resulted in wait times for new patients dropping by almost 50 percent. 

“The program calls for some of our doctors to work at nights and on weekends just specifically to address the issues new patients have with the ability to get in,” Ransohoff said. “It’s helping significantly with the access problem, which we’re very proud of.”

Three of the new doctors have brought previously unavailable specialties to the clinic, including minimally invasive spine surgery and endoscopic gastrological ultrasound.

“Having those kinds of doctors who are trained in the special skills that allow very complicated things to be done here in Santa Barbara means our patients don’t have to go to Los Angeles, which can be very inconvenient,” Ransohoff said. 

Digital “front door” enhancements over the last year, including the ability to schedule Urgent Care same-day appointments and establishing primary care visits online, have also made accessing care more convenient. 

“It wasn’t a question of not having the technology, but being part of Sutter encouraged us to make that possible because some of their other groups also do that,” Ransohoff said. “We are now part of a system where our brethren are doing that. We should too.” 

Sansum is also following Sutter Health’s lead in adopting a more robust and consistent approach to ensuring safety and security at all its locations, including the deployment of patrol vehicles, for higher levels of security for employees, clinicians, patients and visitors. 

Three new outpatient operating rooms at Foothill Surgery Center, which Sutter Health funded, are now open and in use, and facilities improvements are underway across Sansum’s 19 patient care centers. These improvements address everything from site repairs to paint, parking and signage, improving the experience of patients and staff. And members of Sansum’s clinical teams are now connecting with their peers at Sutter, leading to collaboration, sharing of knowledge and best practices, and educational opportunities; all of which advance Sutter and Sansum’s goal to be the best place to work, practice medicine, and receive care. 

In short, Ransohoff said, Sansum is very pleased with the choice of partner and what’s already been accomplished, and with the Sutter team’s dedication to the organization’s shared goals. “They’ve been very good about following through with all the things that they said that they were going to do,” he said. “And more.” 

When last year’s partnership with Sutter Health was announced, Sansum Clinic noted that a key goal was to place an already acknowledged industry leader in an even better position to recruit and retain extraordinary physician talent – a particular and increasing challenge over the years in Santa Barbara, largely due to the high cost of living on the South Coast. The hiring of the new clinicians over the last 12 months has been one of the fruits of the pact, but what wasn’t part of the official agreement was Sutter contributing to addressing similar issues with support staff, including salary increases to make Sansum a more competitive employer on the Central Coast, enhancing both retention and recruitment efforts. 

“We didn’t have a standing commitment that they were going to help close the compensation gap with some of our staff, but Sutter has provided $7 million of funding for rank-and-file staff of all different levels,” Ransohoff said. “They didn’t need to do it, but they’re aware of the fact that we live in a very expensive community and people are about as important a resource as we have.” 

Despite the new partnership and Sutter’s investment in Sansum Clinic just over the first year, philanthropic giving to Sansum from within the local community remains vitally important. As a nonprofit healthcare organization, Sansum continues to rely on the generous support of community members, charitable organizations, and grateful patients in its pursuit of medical excellence. Private donations help to fund Sansum’s Physician Housing Program to continue to attract top caliber physicians from around the United States, an issue Ransohoff said has become exponentially more challenging than when he first came to the clinic 32 years ago. 

“The ratio of the cost of a house to what an internist makes has changed many times over since then,” he said. “Thankfully, there are people in this community who have been willing to help us with this program, which funds a special loan that allows a young doctor with a lot of debt to be able to make it in Santa Barbara.”

Donations also help Sansum to purchase advanced diagnostic machines beyond what Sutter can provide, Ransohoff said.

“Having more equipment means shorter wait time,” he said. “Philanthropic support can provide equipment that might not otherwise make sense financially, but it makes a big difference to the community.” 

Private Santa Barbara-based funding also supports Sansum’s programs offering free diagnostic services for uninsured patients of the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, which have totaled more than $4 million over the last 14 years. 

Most importantly, despite the new partnership with Sutter, every gift to Sansum Clinic stays in our community, Ransohoff stressed. 

“People might have a concern now that if they donate to healthcare in Santa Barbara, the funds will be shipped up to Sacramento. That’s simply not the case. Sutter is very good about understanding that there are a lot of services that an organization like Sansum provides to help meet the needs of the community, services that actually lose money. That’s true of many of our programs. It helps tremendously to have philanthropic support.”