Sarasota County Public Hospital Board, at-large Seat 1: Alan Sprintz

Age: 84

Current occupation: Experienced former hospital CEO

How long a resident of Sarasota: 18 years

Why are you running for election?

With many years of experience to give me an understanding of hospitals and board functioning, I decided to run because I was concerned about the future of our highly respected and trusted hospital.  

I want to preserve its excellence. Before the Republican primary last month, there were candidates for the hospital board who insisted SMH allow non-peer reviewed care be performed in the hospital. Although these candidates are not on the November ballot, I am running for the board to ensure that such approaches are not considered again. They would paralyze the board and impact the progress of the hospital. 

Have you ever run for public office before? If so, for what office?

I have not run for office previously.

What experience and/or special skills do you have that make you a better candidate than your opponents? 

I have an MBA in hospital administration. For more than 25 years, I led several different types of hospital systems, including community nonprofits and teaching hospitals. I know hospitals. I understand their complexities and how they work.

In my 25+ years of experience, I have:

• Built and staffed hospitals from the ground up. I know what it takes to recruit and retain the best medical professionals.
• Expanded the reach of a hospital to bring medical care to underserved areas. I know what it takes to create partnerships that help provide healthcare to all individuals. 
• Managed the total finances of a hospital. I know what it takes to stay within a multimillion-dollar budget, even during severe recessions.

Hospitals are highly complicated and challenging organizations.  I am skilled at getting physicians, nurses and the board to all work toward a common vision.

What do you see as the top three or four priorities that the hospital board needs to address? And how should those priorities be addressed? 

Rapid growth is hitting Sarasota County, including in areas where healthcare does not exist. The board must oversee the expansion of healthcare to a growing population and tackle the high cost of providing it.  

Setting strategic direction and managing the strategic process are first priorities for the present and future delivery of effective and efficient healthcare throughout the county. 

Second, while healthcare costs and reimbursement are national issues, a local priority for the board is to drive new and innovative patient-centered formats of healthcare delivery that are both cost effective and quality driven.

A third priority is to guide our hospital in the skillful management of its finances and, fourth, to deliver excellent care that doesn’t just meet but actually exceeds national quality standards.

If SMH is to achieve these objectives, it will rely on highly engaged board members who cooperate closely with physicians, nurses, executive administration and citizen representatives.

On a scale of A to F, with A being excellent, what grade would you give the performance of the current SMH executive team? Why, and what if anything should change in the way SMH leadership operates the SMH system?

The current SMH executive team has worked with great competence in dealing with the complexities of growth and expansion, such as opening multiple urgent-care centers throughout the county and a full-service hospital in Venice. I give it an A.

We need to preserve that standard and keep that top grade up. 

Within the last 10 years, SMH has expanded to meet the healthcare needs of a growing population, consistent with its mission as the public hospital authority for Sarasota County.

The hospital’s property-tax millage rate has been 1.042 mills. In 2023, that generated $81.9 million in property-tax revenue, accounting for 58% of the hospital system’s surplus over its expenses. What is your position on the hospital’s millage rate — should it remain 1.042 mills; should it be reduced or increased? Why? 

Integral to its public hospital mission — and unlike all for-profit facilities — SMH does not turn away any person presenting themselves to the hospital for care, even if they don’t have insurance and can’t pay.  

Because Florida has elected not to expand Medicaid coverage to eligible low-income Floridians, thousands of patients can’t afford the care they have received. Last year SMH covered $63 million worth of this needed care. What’s more, every year the state taxes hospitals to offset Medicaid costs. Last year alone, SMH was taxed $20 million for that purpose. 

Citizens should be aware that SMH is only using half of its allotted and permitted taxing authority, yet it is still able to serve people who have no or inadequate insurance and make the mandatory contribution to state indigent care. 

What SMH collects through its current taxation covers that $83 million worth of nonpaid care. I believe we should preserve the current millage rate, and the board should continue its prudent management and fiscal practice. 

A faction of Sarasota County citizens contends the hospital should be sold and privatized. What is your position on this and why? 

When a hospital is non-profit, the surplus funds (profit) are used by the hospital to improve or expand its provision of healthcare to the people of the community it serves.  

By contrast, the purpose of a for-profit hospital is to generate income for its investors — not primarily to serve the community.

Over the years, SMH has achieved its mission as a public hospital. It rightfully spent billions of dollars in wages; jobs were created via expansion construction projects; supplies were purchased; and healthcare was provided to people with and without insurance. SMH is the fuel for a thriving economy in Sarasota County. 

For-profit hospitals focus on dividends for the shareholders or investors. To maximize profits for themselves, not the community, they traditionally reduce costs by eliminating costly services and employees. Typically, these include labor and maternity, trauma, mental health and emergency care. 

SMH has up to12,000 employees and spends more than $1 billion on wages. If thousands of employees lose their jobs, wages supporting their families will disappear.  

Because for-profits do not treat patients without insurance or money, where will the people of Sarasota County go for healthcare when they don’t have adequate health insurance? Where will people go for trauma care after an accident, or have a baby or take a sick child who requires hospital care?  

If SMH is sold, what will be the economic impact to the businesses, arts, and the everyday lives of people in our county?  What happens to a thriving economy when its fuel is depleted?

Regarding COVID-19 vaccines, the hospital board recently rejected a motion from Board Member Victor Rohe to add on the SMH website, among other points, the following: “to fully inform the public of the lack of pre-authorization safety data, the evidence of probable risks of these injections and of [Florida Surgeon General] Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s recent call to immediately halt the use of these COVID-19 mRNA injections. … Further, all staff and employees should be instructed, when they interact with patients or other members of the community who make inquiries about the COVID-19 vaccine, to refer those patients or community members to the information available on the SMH website concerning the risks and lack of safety data, rather than simply referring those individuals to local pharmacies that continue to dispense these potentially dangerous injections.” 

Instead the board unanimously voted to support the following: “That the Board will continue to respect and honor every patient’s right to make [his/her] own health care decision within the patient-physician relationship, and using all resources available to them to inform the discussions surrounding those decisions … [T]he Board will continue to endeavor not to invade the physician-patient relationship or mandate treatment regimens for patients to its physicians.”

Do you agree or disagree with the board’s decision, and why? 

The hospital as an organization does not practice medicine, and therefore it should not recommend treatments or issue advisories. It is the individual physician, licensed to practice medicine, who advises appropriate treatments. 

Victor Rohe’s proposed resolution inserted the hospital into the role of advising treatment. Therefore, I agree with the board’s decision to reaffirm the prime relationship of the physician with the patient in guiding care.