Modesto hospital leaders talk future of healthcare in Central Valley
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Modesto hospitals expand cancer, maternal and specialty care to meet rising demand.
- Hospitals partner with UC Davis, GVHC to recruit physicians and improve retention.
- AI tools support stroke, cancer, and hypertension detection without replacing doctors.
The Modesto Chamber of Commerce rounded out its Modesto motto-themed summer advocacy series with a panel on “Health,” held at the Doctors Medical Conference Center. Previous sessions were related to the other words that make up the motto on the city arch: “water,” “wealth” and “contentment.”
The panel on Sept. 19 included all three major hospitals in Modesto: Memorial Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Modesto Medical Center and Doctors Medical Center.
Modesto Chamber of Commerce President Trish Christensen said since moving to Modesto in the late 1980s, she has had familial experience with each hospital, including taking her son to Kaiser following his failed attempt to play basketball while on a pogo stick. “I will tell you, I’ve tasted them all, there’s genuine care in all the hospitals, so I’ll give each of you as leaders appreciation for that,” Christensen said.
Amy Collier Carroll, vice president and chief communications officer at Golden Valley Health Centers, facilitated the panel. Discussion included physician acquisition and retention, access to maternal healthcare and challenges with increased cancer mortality in the Central Valley.
How providers tackle higher cancer mortality in the Central Valley
Tracy Roman, CEO of Sutter Health’s Memorial Medical Center, said the cancer mortality rate for the Central Valley is higher than average for the state, so her hospital has focused on cancer care.
“We’ve worked on expanding our access for cancer patients by recruiting new providers into our area,” Roman said.
Sutter Health is working to create the first cancer center in Modesto, opening in 2029. “It provides space for us to grow our programs so that we can meet the growing needs of our community,” Roman said.
Jay Krishnaswamy, CEO of Tenet Healthcare’s Doctors Medical Center, said his focus has been to maintain and expand its specialty care clinics, including a new pulmonary clinic that opened a few months ago.
“Cancer cases, there are a lot here, so our goal is to make sure we identify lung cancer at an early stage and make sure it’s appropriately treated and quickly triaged.”
Maternity and Infant services
Doctors Medical has partnered with Valley Children’s Healthcare to open a maternal-fetal medicine clinic and also collaborate with UC Davis through an OB-GYN rotation, which Krishnaswamy wants to expand since there is a shortage.
“The goal is to bring in physicians at that stage where they can visualize the level of care, the level of need, and our focus [is that they] continue to stay here and continue to provide services for our communities,” Krishnaswamy said.
Roman said Sutter is working to upgrade its neonatal intensive care unit from a special care nursery to one that can handle high-level critical care “that will allow us to care for younger and sicker babies who otherwise would be transferred out of our hospital.”
Keeping physicians in Modesto
Andrea Cotter, CEO at Kaiser Permanente Central Valley, said one way she tries to recruit and retain physicians in the Central Valley is through collaborations with UC Davis.
“Third-year medical students from the Central Valley can come back to the Central Valley and rotate with Kaiser physicians in specialties like medical-surgical, surgery, labor and delivery — and they’re able to get experience here during their medical school program,” Cotter said.
Krishnaswamy also partnered with UC Davis physicians through their cardiac surgery rotation, but referred the question of how to keep physicians in Modesto to his trauma director, Rohini Bogineni.
Bogineni said she has been in the community for 13 years and is raising her family here. She said the reason she stayed was because she felt included in decision-making by higher-ups. “We are given a chance to provide a solution to the problem, and who better than us to give a solution?”
Carroll emphasized the importance of nurturing home-grown healthcare providers, “growing people from here in this community and keeping them here, so hopefully we’ll get more medical schools and training programs.”
How will AI play a role in patient healthcare?
Cotter said Kaiser is committed to using AI in a way that is equitable and founded on research.
“Most importantly, though, no matter what efficiencies it brings, the human judgement at the end of the day will never go away,” she said.
Krishnaswamy said he uses something called “viz.ai” to improve detection of strokes. “We want to make sure we don’t miss it and we tackle it right off the bat,” he said.
He also uses a tool for early detection of small nodules in the lung, indicating cancer. “AI can never substitute the hard work physicians and our colleagues do every day, but it’s more and more of a supplement.”
Roman said Sutter created an app known as “Sutter Sync” for its hypertension patients. “What it does is it monitors blood pressure and provides alerts to the patient and provider when things go out of range and allows them to provide guidance or care without going to the office for a visit,” Roman said.
Collaboration with other providers
Each hospital partners with Golden Valley Health Centers to increase access for patients.
Roman said Sutter works with GVHC “so that patients leaving our hospital are connected to primary and specialty care upon discharge.”
Kaiser is in its second year of a pilot program partnering with Golden Valley Health to meet specialty needs including endocrinology and nephrology, according to Cotter. “We’re trying our best to make sure if it’s not something we can easily provide ourselves right away, how do we partner with those in the community to help provide it?” she said.
The hospital also has a youth program that offers internships to high school students and local colleges, called Kaiser Permanente LAUNCH.
Krishnaswamy also works with Golden Valley to coordinate care through Doctors Medical Center’s OB Hospitalist program, providing more services to expectant mothers and their babies.
Additionally, DMC, Kaiser and Memorial are making plans to collaborate further among themselves. “We just the three of us talked about needing to get together monthly just to talk a little bit more about how we can work together — there’s a real openness to doing so,” Roman said.
Cotter and Krishnaswamy said they looked forward to it.
“Listen, I’ve worked in places where there is not enough community need or population growth for more than one healthcare system,” Cotter said. “I’ve lived that life, and it’s not the Central Valley.”
This story was originally published September 22, 2025 at 12:46 PM.
