Capping a political week...

Today our Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren paid a visit to Valley Medical Center, a place she knows more about than I do.

That's because, among other reasons, she helped save it.

Back in the mid-90's, there were some who wanted the County of Santa Clara to get out of the medical center business. Zoe, a county supervisor at the time, said, essentially, "nope - that ain't gonna happen" and fought to keep VMC open and available to everyone.

Today, she came to learn about our Medical Legal Partnership Clinic. The alert reader of this blog knows about how we have attorneys from the SV Law Foundation on hand to help our patients with problems that doctors cannot solve. She was really excited about this innovation, and pledged to help us keep the program going.

She's not the only one impressed by VMC's creativity.

Yesterday, we had a visit from Michael Blake, who does intergovernmental affairs for the White House. Yes, THAT White House. He was also blown away by what he heard from our team of doctors, nurses, and administrators who never stop thinking about how to serve Silicon Valley better than the day before. Big thanks to Supervisor Liz Kniss who made sure Mr. Blake came to see VMC during his whirlwind tour of Silicon Valley.

Both Michael and Zoe also had a lot to say about health care reform, but to keep from getting TOO political, let me just say that not all the good news about it has made the papers, and not all of it is even worked out yet. I'll just quote Congresswoman Lofgren who said, about those on the fringes who oppose ANY reform at all: "We're living on the same planet, but we're breathing different air."

Visits like these certainly demonstrate one thing: VMC has a lot to show off, and many of our programs and ideas can (and should) serve as models for medical centers across the nation. Wanna hear more about what VMC is doing? Visit our website and see what's new!