![John Rossfeld [contributed]](https://www.theavtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/John-Rossfeld-AVH-CEO-1-253x300.jpg)
The appointment of Rossfeld was made by Alecto Healthcare Services, the management company overseeing AVH, and ratified by the Antelope Valley Healthcare District board of directors during its December board meeting. While he is an Alecto employee, Rossfeld will be on-site full time to oversee AVH’s daily operations.
“John is an experienced healthcare executive with an exceptional reputation for team building and taking hospitals to new heights,” stated Lex Reddy, Alecto’s CEO who briefly served as AVH’s interim leader while the search for the permanent CEO was underway. “We are confident that his first-rate leadership, communication, analytical and organizational skills will greatly benefit Antelope Valley Hospital and the community we serve.”
Rossfeld brings to AVH more than 30 years of healthcare leadership experience, including serving as CEO for numerous hospitals and health systems. Most recently he was CEO of Memorial Hospital of Craig in Colorado. Additionally, he has served as CEO for several Southern California hospitals, including San Dimas Community Hospital, Sherman Oaks Hospital and Encino Hospital, as well as Gila Regional Medical Center in New Mexico and Salt Lake Regional Medical Center in Utah.
Rossfeld holds a Master of Public Health degree in hospital administration from the University of California Los Angeles and a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Missouri-Saint Louis.
[Information via news release from Antelope Valley Hospital.]
Previous related story: AV Hospital board cites quality healthcare as top priority with new management contract
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actuallyinformed says
This guy is going to serve as nothing more than a messenger of Alecto Healthcare. Any decisions made will be dictated to him and he will serve as the mouthpiece of Lex Reddy’s management firm. This management company (selected by the district’s board of directors) has come into this facility and immediately put a stop on several initiatives that would have improved workflows, compliance, and patient care, all in the interest of cutting costs as much as possible without regard to how the patients who rely on this hospital will be effected.
We have a for-profit company (Alecto) tasked with running a non-profit hospital district. Aside from their base fees, they receive a percentage of revenue. As such, they are whacking costs with a machete in order to pocket as much as possible while they are here. Their focus extends no farther than 3 years into the future. They have no real interest in ensuring long-term prosperity or long-term patient outcomes. They care about one thing and one thing only. Short-term profitability.
Mr. Rossfeld will have little say as to whether or not the hospital makes deals with Rex, or anyone else for that matter. He is an employee of Alecto Healthcare. Not the Antelope Valley Healthcare District.
Our board has pushed out an effective leader (Dennis Knox) who was on track to bring this facility into long-term prosperity, and hired a for-profit firm (at more than 10x the cost of hiring a CEO). The board has effectively screwed the hospital out of millions and millions by ruining our chances of refinancing our debt with HUD, authorizing exorbitant fees to be paid to Alecto, destabilizing leadership, and halting all efforts which had been put into motion to improve care-providers’ abilities to do their jobs effectively and properly.
Board of directors consisting mostly of physicians who practice medicine (earn money working) at AV Hospital…. Conflict of interest, maybe?
Alecto, a for-profit business running a public, non-profit healthcare district…. Conflict of interest, maybe?
William says
Production began today, Jan 4, on the next season of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Tim says
Exactly, William. Does anything go right in this gawd-forsaken city? It is one cluster-f after another since Rex took over. Birds, spy planes, cronyism, frivolous law suits, boycotts, panhandling, fights with residents in gyms, racist hit mailers, Chinese birth tourism, crime. Maybe this guy can break the chain of corruption?
William says
@Tim
Exactly. It was all predictable when rex first took office. Given the good ol’ boys system in Lancaster, what else could have been expected?
Right off the bat, his proclamations that the blvd would be a “world class destination” that people from everywhere would come to visit and spend money should have given any person listening a clue as to how high and wide he can spread the manure.
He has the magic touch that everything he touches turns to krap.
And, he wants to merge with Palmdale. That notion should keep Palmdale residents sleepless at night.
Anon says
He doesn’t want to merge with Palmdale for any other reason that to suck the tax revenue and bring it north to reward his political pals. Most people who have an inkling of what goes on in this Valley know what he’s up to. This is why he constantly attacks Palmdale. This is why he constantly sues Palmdale. This is why he stuck his nose into the districting lawsuit. He will stop at nothing in his lust for control. Thankfully people are wise to him.
James says
The wait isn’t the staff, it’s the massive amount of patients that clog up the er, avh is one of the busiest ER’s in southern California. There is a perfect storm of the antelope valley being medically under served and people using avh er as their primary physician as well as going to the ER for non emergency reasons that could be taken care of at an urgent care or just stay home and wait out you vomiting, flu, cold and such.
William says
Does it seem that the routine for some jobs is an early buyout of their contract when they sign it at the onset? Of course, that is the understanding but isn’t publicly disclosed.
I’ve lived in the AV since 1990 and it seems that that is the usual completion of a CEO contract with the AV Hospital and other institutions where there are only a limited number of such jobs in any 1 city. Your contract gets bought out and then you move on to another city.
Vic says
I hope the new guy doesn’t fall for Rex’s birth tourism pressure.
monique says
I hope the hospital gets better staff!! Please these waiting times are ridiculous . And good luck congratulations! John Rossfeld
allie22 says
no, the hospital is not going to ‘get better staff’. the ‘staff’- by which I assume you mean healthcare providers- are not the problem. the problem is that the board of directors of this hospital, the vast majority of whom are doctors, lack the business sense and skills to hire decent and effective managers to run this hospital. come on, you’ve all been to a doctor’s office in this valley! you’ve had to deal with the the rude and incompetent people that these doctors hire to staff their offices and handle our actual health care servicing! WHY do the resident’s of the Antelope Valley keep on electing DOCTORS to be in control of your hospital? if the AV Press or AV Times or any other local media actually cared, they would be doing stories about the amount of $$ that the doctors on the board make by referring the ER patients to their own practices, or to the other docs in their ‘good ole boys’ network that they have going. when you have bad experiences at the hospital, you have to understand how much of the blame has to be placed on the board of directors and their bad decisions. because the bottom line is, they DON’T CARE if you are getting bad care, because they’ll get paid either way. and when everyone from the top down is slashing the tools that allow the nurses to give you good care, blaming the nurses is not the answer. when they are denying nurses the medical equipment, the services of the radiology and respiratory therapy departments, the equipment and medicines right out of the units, insist on ever more elaborate amounts of charting on a computer system that was antiquated 15 years ago- they are taking time and care away from you as a patient. not to mention hiring freezes on new staff, and use of registry nurses in an attempt to starve the nurses union out of existence so that the patient’s will lose their only organized advocates. the hiring of Alecto is just the latest crash in a long, slow motion train wreck in your public hospital. if you don’t like it, then STOP voting for physician candidates
actuallyinformed says
This is all very-much on point.