Sarasota County Public Hospital Board, at-large Seat 2: Dale Anderson

Age: 75

Current occupation: Retired physician, hospital executive and health system consultant.

Resident of Sarasota County: 11 years

Why are you running for election?

My entire career has been in healthcare. I was first a practicing internist and emergency physician with a large group practice in the Midwest. 

Later I was a senior physician hospital executive with two large health systems, one in Albuquerque, and the other in Columbus, Ohio. 

For the past five years of my career, I was a consultant with a Miami-based firm, working with large health systems on hospital-physician integration strategies. 

I am running for this board seat because of concerns about certain forces in our society that want to turn away from evidence-based care and who demean expert healthcare agencies, undermining their recommendations to the public. Putting anti-science representatives on the SMH board would harm patients and the ability of the health system to recruit the best and brightest professionals. 

I am also running for this seat to assure SMH remains a public hospital with its commitment to serving all members of our community.

I have deep experience in healthcare and believe that now, in retirement, I can contribute my experience and skills toward continually improving the medical care provided to our community.

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

No.

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

The best boards have members with a mixture of member experience and skills. Health systems are complex organizations. Board members are tasked with hiring and evaluating the chief executive officer of the system; setting the mission, vision and long-term strategic direction for the organization; evaluating service offerings; assuring quality and safety systems are in place; and monitoring the financial health of the institution. 

Having years of experience in all of these areas and working with the boards of two major health systems prepares me to effectively serve the SMH board and the SRQ community. 

While my opponent has worked to support SMH, he does not have the background or in-depth experience with hospital management, quality and safety systems, disease management, recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals, medical technology or insurance strategies that I have accumulated. 

Further, loyalty to his party puts his political work at odds with the mission of the health system. If the purpose of SMH is to improve the health and safety of our community, then, as a board leader, he should be in favor of policies that advance those goals. He should publicly support expansion of Medicaid in Florida, which will provide care for an additional 570,000 Floridians. He should support gun reforms, to address the epidemic of violence that is the leading cause of child and teen deaths. He should favor preserving the federal government’s ability to negotiate prescription drug prices on behalf of their Medicare members. And he should be against government interference in the doctor-patient relationship regarding what’s best for a woman’s reproductive health.  

The fact that in the board room he will support improving patient care and safety, but outside of the board room support policies that harm the community’s health is counterproductive and  hypocritical. 

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? 

The biggest challenge facing SMH will be recruiting and retaining the human resources (physicians, nurses and staff) necessary to meet the needs of our growing community. 

Florida’s population is expected to grow 14% by 2030 with the percentage of seniors increasing from 22% to 25%. These demographic changes will increase pressure on existing health systems that are already experiencing shortages of primary and certain specialty care services. I understand the challenges of recruiting and retaining medical professionals and can help provide perspective on this issue for the board. 

A second challenge will come from insurance company pressure to lower the cost of care for their members. SMH must continually innovate to find ways to deliver high-quality, patient -centered care at lower costs. This will require rethinking where and who delivers the care and how new technologies (advanced AI-supported Telehealth for example) can create efficiencies.

Artificial Intelligence has the potential to reduce in-person visits; automate routine tasks; streamline chronic disease management; optimize healthcare resources; and reduce hospital readmissions among other potential applications. As a board member, I would support this new emerging capability as a priority and monitor how it is integrated into hospital operations.

On a scale of A to F, with A being excellent, what grade would you give the performance of the current SMH executive team? 

Sarasota Memorial Hospital deserves an A grade. A talented and forward-looking executive team leads it. 

Why, and what if anything should change in the way SMH leadership operates the SMH system? 

I would ask SMH leadership to find a way to better demonstrate how the system is improving the health of our community. 

Patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and depression require ongoing periodic counseling by healthcare professionals in the outpatient setting for best outcomes. Urgent care clinics and emergency departments are not effective settings for management of such diseases. 

SMH needs to provide a detailed explanation of how their ambulatory clinics (First Physicians) and affiliated care providers are addressing chronic disease and report on the effectiveness of their efforts. Such a report will provide the community with confidence that their tax dollars are being wisely invested.

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? 

With the information available to me at this time, I would not change the millage rate. I assume the hospital financial experts and consultants presented their case for the current tax rate to the existing board which deemed the millage appropriate. 

The dollars generated from the tax support the mission of the public hospital by helping cover the cost of uncompensated care of county residents, leaving service generated revenues that can fund needed growth of service. 

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

I would not vote for privatization or sale to a for-profit entity. Privatization would lead to a reduction of services to both our uninsured and insured citizens.

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? 

I support the board’s decision to reject Mr. Rohe’s motion and Surgeon General Ladapo’s statements about COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Dr. Ladapo’s beliefs about vaccines are at great odds with the broader medical community. 

The statement the board made reiterating rights patients already enjoy seemed more political than necessary. However, I understand the importance of clarifying that the hospital board does not practice medicine and will not engage in determining clinical protocols.