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St. Luke's Blogs

Join Me on the Journey

By Dr. David C. Pate, News and Community
December 6, 2011

Welcome to my first blog! I’ve never done this before, and I invite your suggestions, comments, and questions.

My site is for all St. Luke's  employees, physicians, and board members; friends of St. Luke's, including our donors; and communities. In keeping with our vision of transformation, I’m also interested in knowing what’s working, and what isn’t, when it comes to health care across our region.

I have been looking for more ways to reach our employees and physicians. I have held board, employee, and physician forums and management meetings; rounded in various parts of the System; dedicated Q&A hours at our Tomorrow's Work Force meetings; and filmed segments that have been sent through e-mail and Channel ONE.

I want to get the word out to all employees and our physicians, and the blog is a way to try to reach people that I might otherwise miss through the other communication venues.

I also have reviewed our employee survey results, and am aware that employees want to know more about senior leadership's vision and strategy. This is particularly important as we go through unprecedented changes. Health care reform, the tremendous growth of our System, electronic health record implementation, creation of new physician leadership structures, and value-based purchasing are just a few of those changes. All of these will be the subject of future blog entries.

Finally, we are working to provide even greater transparency to the public. After all, the community owns St. Luke’s. And while not everyone will agree with everything I write in this blog, I hope everyone will appreciate this and other attempts we are making to share as much information as possible with our stakeholders.

Primarily, this blog will chronicle St. Luke's Health System's journey to transform health care. I’ll explain our strategy and the philosophy behind it. I will also use this blog to share news from around the System. And for perspective, I will occasionally comment on current affairs and public policy.

My plan is to add a new post at least every two weeks. As news breaks, we will tweet that a new post has been made, so be sure to follow me on Twitter at Twitter.com/drpatestlukes. And if you want your friends, colleagues, and family to know what we are up to, be sure to subscribe to my blog and “like” us on Facebook, at facebook.com/stlukesidaho.

Thank you for your time and attention. I look forward to an ongoing dialogue with you as we partner to improve the health of people in our region and work together to transform health care.

About The Author

David C. Pate, M.D., J.D., previously served as president and CEO of St. Luke's Health System, based in Boise, Idaho. Dr. Pate joined the System in 2009 and retired in 2020. He received his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center.