Sutter Health this week announced how it integrated Sansum Clinic personnel into its leadership structure now that the merger is official.

Sansum Clinic has primary and specialty care clinics in Santa Barbara County, and Sutter Health, which operates hospitals and medical clinics in Northern California, wants to expand its outpatient services.

Sutter Health created a sixth market, the Greater Central Coast, which is anchored by Sansum Clinic, representatives said in a statement Wednesday.

Dr. Kurt Ransohoff, Sansum’s longtime CEO and chief medical officer, is now Greater Central Coast market president for Sutter.

“Our teams are already coming together to strategize on the best ways to meet the growing demand for services in our region. This new ability to collaborate across Sutter’s different markets and service lines will elevate our patient care and allow us to tap into resources we did not have previously,” he said in a statement.

Dr. Marjorie Newman is still medical director for Sansum Clinic and will become chief medical officer of the physicians group.

Dr. Jeffrey Hadsall will be president of the Board of Directors of the physicians group, Sansum-Santa Barbara Medical Clinic Inc.

The rest of the executive leadership team includes mostly familiar faces from Sansum Clinic and a few new people.

“That shows a lot of trust in the existing team,” Sansum Clinic spokeswoman Jill Fonte said. 

Two Sansum Clinic board members joined Sutter Health’s Bay Area Board of Directors. The other members transitioned to a community advisory board “to represent our community’s interests up to the Bay Area board,” Fonte explained.

The ‘Strategic Partnership’  

The motivation to partner with Sutter Health was to create a “more substantial financial footing” and recruit more physicians to the area, Ransohoff told Noozhawk when the deal was announced last year.

Sutter Health funded three more operating rooms for the Foothill Surgery Center and will decide what upgrades are next to increase access, Fonte said.

There haven’t been any clinical changes yet, she added.

“The executive-level leadership is now part of Sutter, where Sansum employees are still operating as Sansum” (during the integration), Fonte said.

Sutter Health’s other five markets include Greater Sacramento, Greater Central Valley, Greater East Bay, Greater San Francisco and Greater Silicon Valley.

Click here to read the full statement from Sutter Health about the Greater Central Coast market and Sansum Clinic leadership.