Brown & Toland Board Releases Update

The year 2010 promises to be a year of growth and opportunity for Brown & Toland, San Francisco's largest multi-specialty clinically integrated independent practice association (IPA).

"With our new partnership with California Pacific Medical Center, we are positioned to deploy our electronic tools, including the electronic medical record (EMR), to a greater number of community physicians," said Neal Birnbaum, M.D., Brown & Toland's Chairman of the Board. "Our EMR is unique in that it connects our independent physician offices so that they can share, at the speed of the Web, patient lab and test results, increasing efficiencies and quality of care."

To date, Brown & Toland has deployed the EMR to 150 physicians, and plans to deploy the tool to at least 75 additional physicians in 2010. At the end of 2009, the medical group had more than 52 million patient tests and lab results in the system. "Brown & Toland is one of the few IPAs in the country, and the only one in the Bay Area, to deploy an interconnected electronic medical record," said Birnbaum.

Brown & Toland physicians and members also will have greater choice in 2010 as the medical group welcomes Stanford Hospital & Clinics to its greater hospital network. "Our patient satisfaction results show that overall patient satisfaction with care, and such important factors as access to care and communication with physicians, is high at California Pacific Medical Center and the other hospitals in our network," said Birnbaum. "With Stanford now as an additional choice for physicians and members, I am confident that patients will be even more satisfied as Stanford specializes in providing an excellent patient experience and has world-renowned physicians." He added that Brown & Toland expects to add Children's Hospital Oakland later this year as a referring hospital, providing more choice and excellent quality.

Additionally, in 2010 Brown & Toland will perform management services for Alta Bates Medical Group, a premiere East Bay medical group, and will explore ways the two groups can work together to provide more services to their physicians and patients. Alta Bates' 600 physicians provide care for close to 50,000 patients.

"There are a lot of synergies between Brown & Toland and Alta Bates," said Joel Klompus, M.D., Brown & Toland's President. "We are happy about having a management services agreement with Alta Bates, and we are excited about the opportunities to work together. We are confident that there are huge synergies for a large number of physicians and hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents."

Last week Brown & Toland Chief Executive Officer Gloria Austin made public her September 2009 announcement, to the Board, of her plans to retire toward the end of 2010. Birnbaum noted that the Brown & Toland Board has been working with Integrated Healthcare Strategies, the consulting firm that was chosen to help the Board select a successor to Austin. "We fully expect to name a successor who will take our company to the next level, and to continue and grow our innovative philosophy and direction," said Birnbaum.