Collaborating for Better Health

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY - Lompoc Valley Medical Center (LVMC) and Cottage Health (CH) are pleased to announce a collaboration to meet shared goals of service and care. The collaboration will bring new opportunities to enhance current clinical services, expand clinical research and education, and broaden community outreach programs.

The organizations remain separate, unaffiliated entities, dedicated to finding ways to better serve our region with a continuum of care that will meet the changing needs of residents and visitors.

"We want the Lompoc area community to find comfort in knowing that LVMC is the gateway for all their healthcare needs—regardless of whether we provide those services locally or have relationships with other facilities, like Cottage,” says Jim Raggio, CEO of LVMC. "Our respective administrative and medical staffs have worked closely over the past two decades to develop a professional relationship based on trust and mutual respect. This collaboration is an important step in reinforcing the ever-expanding scope of high-quality services either provided or facilitated, by Lompoc Valley Medical Center."

For many years, the medical staffs of LVMC and CH have worked closely on coordinated transfers and referrals of patients needing specialized care in Santa Barbara, where Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital’s Trauma Center stands ready to treat adult and pediatric patients with critical illness or injury.

In recent years, LVMC and CH have developed a successful telemedicine program for neurology consults—to relay information quickly when minutes matter most—and have partnered on effective transfer protocols for newborns needing neonatal intensive care in the Level 3 NICU at Cottage Children’s Medical Center. LVMC and CH also partner on advancing medical education in our region, as physician residents from SBCH’s Graduate Medical Education program may rotate to LVMC to provide a rural acute care hospital experience for its physicians.

“We value our longstanding relationship with Lompoc Valley Medical Center to ensure access to care throughout the region,” says Ron Werft, President and CEO of Cottage Health. “Our clinical teams work well together to expedite care and do what is best for patients. Residents and visitors in our communities can be assured that wherever they seek treatment in our region, they will have access to hospitals and physicians working daily together to offer the level of care they need.”

Lompoc Valley Medical Center and Cottage Health intend to explore opportunities to develop or expand clinical programs, leveraging the strengths of each organization to meet the health care needs of the Central Coast.

About Cottage Health www.cottagehealth.org

The not-for-profit Cottage Health is the leader in providing advanced medical care to the Central Coast region. Specialties include the Cottage Children’s Medical Center, Level 1 Trauma Center, Neuroscience Institute, Heart & Vascular Center, Center for Orthopedics, and Rehabilitation Hospital. The Cottage Health medical staff is comprised of more than 700 physicians, many with subspecialties typically found only at university medical centers. Last year, the Cottage Health hospitals in Goleta, Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez Valley provided inpatient care for 20,000 people, treated 78,000 patients through their 24-hour emergency departments and helped deliver 2,200 newborns.

About Lompoc Valley Medical Center www.LompocVMC.com

Lompoc Valley Medical Center is a California Healthcare District committed to providing safe, quality, compassionate and patient-centered healthcare services to the Lompoc community. Lompoc Valley Medical Center (LVMC) was the first operating healthcare district hospital established in California and was created in 1946 by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. The 463-square-mile healthcare district is governed by a locally elected five-member board of directors. LVMC includes a 60-bed acute care hospital, a 110-bed skilled rehabilitative and long-term care facility, a physician-based practice for primary and specialty care, a Family Caregiver Support Network, off-site imaging and laboratory services, a Counseling Center, a hematology-oncology practice and a Sleep Disorder Center.