Measure N<\/a>, which will appear on the November ballot, needs supermajority support to levy a $111-per-property parcel tax countywide. Like many hospitals serving rural areas, El Centro Regional has struggled to survive in a health care market that has seen expenses for labor and supplies increase every year. In 2023, the medical center pursued consolidation after nearly running through its financial reserves.<\/p>\nSan Diego County residents might wonder how this situation intersects with their interests.<\/p>\n
Patricia Maysent, UC San Diego Health\u2019s chief executive officer, said in an interview last week that everyone should realize that the interconnected nature of healthcare means that losing a hospital would have far-reaching effects.<\/p>\n
Helping existing providers band together, she said, creates a sort of critical mass that can make more services viable than might otherwise be the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been a ton of work with the state and the governor\u2019s office wanting to see this happen so that we can finally get enough scale to try to keep health care open there and not just open, but to grow the clinical infrastructure,\u201d Maysent said.<\/p>\n
Her connection to El Centro Regional Medical Center\u00a0started in 2016 when Maysent joined the hospital\u2019s board of trustees. That move occurred after the medical center and the university\u00a0cemented a clinical affiliation agreement that sent university specialists east for consultations or extended expertise through telemedicine.<\/p>\n
Having made the drive out to El Centro many times, Maysent said she couldn\u2019t help but understand that having a full complement of healthcare resources east of the Laguna Mountains is essential. Cancer care, she said, is a good example.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, if you need to have radiation or infusion, you have to come over the mountain,\u201d Maysent said.<\/p>\n
She said the newly merged\u00a0Imperial Valley district, said to represent more than 180,000 Imperial Valley residents, can help justify deeper investment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to create a model that the rest of the state can learn from about how we can come together,\u201d Maysent. \u201cThis is not an economic play (for UCSD), but it\u2019s a public health community service.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to make sure healthcare stays close to home and can be sustained over the long term, despite all of the federal hits that everyone is taking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Already, UCSD and Imperial County medical providers have collaborated on several initiatives, including a psychiatric residency program, paid for with a $2.5 million state grant, that was announced<\/a> in 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A three-year journey toward sustainable health care in the Imperial Valley took a significant step forward Monday as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,1570,23,100,74,84,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-501601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-health","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}