Saving the world, one YouTube video at a time...

We posted another video today with your Humble Blogger's recent appearance on Comcast Newsmakers, talking about Measure A...click here to check it out, and share with others.

However, this is not the most exciting video of the day - imagine that. Yes, while looking for the URL for the video above, I discovered a gem: David Garibaldi, our fabulous entertainment from the VMC Foundation spring fling, "Vino & Vistas", amazing the audience with his skills...this one you MUST SEE.

More coming soon, as YouTube is fast replacing that outmoded communication method we used to call "reading". Hey, just kidding, my newspaper friends!

Cheers,
Chris

Our Gala and Measure A Support!

I've figured out about blogging: If you do it right, you don't really need to write much...just point out great writing that others have done - such a snap!

We're so glad that the Mercury News truly understands Valley Medical Center, as their lead editorial today urging a YES vote on Measure A clearly demonstrates:


"When Silicon Valley residents go to a hospital, they expect to receive quality care utilizing the latest advances in technology. That holds true at Valley Medical Center today. But it won't five years from now unless Santa Clara County voters approve Measure A..." Read the full story here.


Also today in the Merc, our pal Sal Pizarro shared his thoughts on our 20th Anniversary Gala...and I'll share mine: A HUGE SUCCESS! I cannot thank everyone enough for the work and support and sponsorships that made "Dancing On Top of the World" so much fun, but a few that we really must:

• Our lead sponsors: Anshen + Allen Architects, Deloitte, The Sobrato Foundation, the Sorci Family Foundation, attorney Richard Alexander and Burrell School Vineyards.




• Vince, Meghan, and all at Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme - hands down the best event and catering team in the valley...they did the impossible. Again.




• Narpat and Chandra Bhandari, who opened their amazing home for us.




• The Board of the VMC Foundation, and our tireless staff...especially JUDY MAASSEN, who did the lion's share of the work!

Our friend Chris Johnson took lots of great photos*, which you will see soon in all the papers, but Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme did too: www.psrt.com/vmc Check 'em out! We danced the night away thanks to David Dumont's Li'l Big Band, and our volunteers kept things running smoothly - except the program, which I sort of torpedoed because, frankly, everyone was having too much fun to stop and listen to a speech.

Still, it would have been fun to tell the story of our founding, and thank the founders that were in the room: Brenna Bolger, Dr. Bob Violante, Susie Wilson, Gerry Beemiller, and Peggy Fleming-Jenkins and Greg Jenkins. Thanking John and Sue Sobrato and singing "Happy Birthday" to our board chair, Leah Toeniskoetter, would have been fun too. Instead, you got to read this, and also Sal's column:

Pizarro: Valley Medical Center supporters kick up their heels at 20th anniversary gala
By Sal Pizarro Mercury News

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the Valley Medical Center Foundation wanted its annual fundraising gala to be a truly special event. Saturday night's "Dancing on Top of the World" certainly qualified on that account.

More than 400 people in black-tie and evening gowns flocked to the beautiful, chateau-like home of Chandra and Narpat Bhandari in the Los Gatos hills, where they took in sweeping views of Silicon Valley and danced the night away in a gorgeous ballroom to the sounds of David Dumont's Lil' Big Band.

Guests were spread throughout several rooms and the grounds for dinner, so there were new faces to greet every time you walked into a room. I didn't run into some people until the evening's end, when everyone was waiting at the great common denominator: the line for the shuttle to get back down the hill.

Chris Wilder, the VMC Foundation's executive director, made a really smart call (suggested, I'm told, by John and Sue Sobrato) to cancel the program and auction portion of the night so as not to interrupt the fun, lively vibe.

But I know what Wilder would have told the crowd if they had been herded into the estate's grand ballroom: The lack of organized opposition to Measure A, the $840 million bond measure to seismically retrofit Valley Medical Center, doesn't mean the hospital's supporters should be complacent. The crowded November ballot means getting positive word out about the measure is more important than ever.

*The one above features Saratoga City Councilmember and Santa Clara Family Health Foundation Exec. Director Kathleen King, Heffernan Insurance's Joseph Talmadge, TBI Development's and VMC Foundation Chair Leah Toeniskoetter, and County Supervisor Ken Yeager.

Movie Review: The Bucket List

Starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, I figured this Rob Reiner-directed flick would be well-acted, but shallow. Wrong! A poignient film with lots of good messages, I enjoyed it from start to finish.

Oh - except for what we pro movie reviewers call a "continuity error" right near the beginning. Continuity errors make it difficult to "suspend disbelief" in the "plotline" and often have us reaching for the "eject button" in favor of "Monty Python reruns". Fortunately, I powered through it.

What was the error? Nicholson's caracter is a hospital owner who insists on two-bed rooms for patients, which he sees as a way to save money or something. But here's the thing: Folks who run hospitals in this day and age know full well that the future is private, single bed rooms!

And guess why? It's better for the patients, AND, better for the hospital! Single bed rooms offer more privacy, ease of visitation and better rest...but they also offer better control of infection, and higher utilization, since you don't have to worry about male/female issues, adult/child issues, and a host of other reasons that your humble movie reviewer is just learning about.

SO, Nicholson's caracter would never insist on shared bed rooms...single bed, private rooms are more efficient any way you look at it. So, if Measure A passes on the November ballot, Valley Medical Center will begin construction on a new patient bed tower - and yes, they will be private suites, unlike some of the older parts of Silicon Valley's largest hospital.

Ah, you thought I'd never work Measure A into this post, didn't you. Silly you. Anyway, now you have a good movie to rent this Memorial Day weekend, and another reason to support Measure A. Doesn't that feel good?

Valley Medical Center: When old was new...

Friends, I just had to share this fantastic photo of Valley Medical Center's "new main" hospital. New, of course, in 1965. That's when we're quite sure this was taken. You car buffs can probably tell me if that's correct.

What I can tell you for sure is that for 50 years, starting in 1960 and continuing today, this building has helped serve Santa Clara County's health care needs. It saw to the training of one in four doctors who practice in Silicon Valley. It saw the patient population served by VMC go up hundreds of percentage points. Hundreds!

Fifty years is a good run for a huge hospital building, especially in earth quake country. Health care technology has advanced at a mind-boggling pace, and it's time to replace this old structure. The state mandates it, and the fault lines around us call for fast action. Measure A can make it happen, and it's replacement should last far longer than 50 years, providing generations in our community with life-saving services, delivered by the best MD's, RN's, techs and volunteers anywhere.

Oh yeah...and if we don't, this community is in big trouble. http://www.vmcmatters.com/ can tell you more. Thanks to the VMC Historical Society for this great photo - more to come, everyone!

When all around you is collapsing...

...your hospital better not.

Judy is my neighbor, and her life was saved by Valley Medical Center when her house crushed her in the Quake of 1989. It seems strange to call Judy "lucky", but that's how she feels looking back on the hours after the second floor of her Los Gatos home landed on top of her as she tried to escape.

Judy is my neighbor, and her story is so compelling that we wanted to capture it on film. It's wrong to say this is a low-budget production, because that would imply that we had SOME kind of budget. So, this likely won't win us an Academy Award - but if they gave Oscars out for saving lives, my neighbors - and the trauma team at VMC - would deserve one.

The point is this: We don't know when the next life-threatening earthquake will hit, but we know it's coming. Parts of Valley Medical Center need to be replaced because they don't meet seismic standards for a quake much larger than the one in 1989. And Judy knows that if VMC had not been there for her, she wouldn't be here today. Period.

Please watch this short video (send it to your personal email if your employer blocks YouTube) and then visit http://www.vmcmatters.com/ to learn about Measure A on the November ballot.

Then ask yourself the question I opened with: When all around you is collapsing, shouldn't your hospital remain at the ready?

Seen any good movies lately?

When we redesigned the VMC Foundation website last year, we thought it would be fun to post videos on YouTube to show off parts of Silicon Valley's biggest, busiest hospital.

By "we", I mean me and a couple of our staff members, including Michael Elliott, Director of Program Development. Our goal was to share some of what goes on at VMC, our work in the community - especially for folks who haven't been on a tour of our campus (I recommend them).

They were not designed to be high-budget, big-production jobs starring Ben Stiller (at least not yet) or Paris Hilton (not ever), but rather a new way to share information. You can see our past episodes of "VMC Foundation TV" at the bottom of our home page at http://www.vmcfoundation.org/ (If your employer blocks access to YouTube, just send this link to your personal account.)

But today, a NEW video has been completed, and I'm really excited about it. This one was specifically requested by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to exemplify our work to enhance nursing practices at VMC on our journey to "Magnet Status" - that's the highest level of nursing designation a hospital can get, and VMC is the ONLY public hospital so far to apply for this top honor.

So that means big name actors, gourmet deli trays and gaffers, right? WRONG! It's all about the story that one nurse has to tell, and the audience will be the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's Board of Directors, not the Hollywood A-List. Michael Elliott may not win his first directing Oscar for this one, but he did succeed in helping share our story with one of the VMC Foundation's most important collaborators. We hope they enjoy it as much as you do, but please don't nominate Linda Fenn, R.N., for a Best Actress award...she's not acting.

A Day in the Sky for kids in San Jose...

Saturday, August 9, was an amazing day for kids with special needs who came to the VMC Foundation's "Day In the Sky" event.

Truly, I'm humbled that the VMC Foundation was even associated with this event...we were the main fiscal sponsors, for sure, but hats are WAY off to Dean McCully and Lisa Bickford who organized the bulk of the work, and without whom it would NOT have happened.

Hundreds of children with autism, ADHD, and lots of other challenges soared above Silicon Valley thanks to dozens of voluteer pilots, including Chris Malachowski, who founded Nvidia and who also owns and flies a helecoptor. Chris and his family are also generous donors to the VMC Foundation's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The San Jose Mercury News covered the big event, starting below...but read the full story - you'll be totally inspired, and thrilled that VMC Foundation volunteers like Dean and Lisa are looking out for kids in our community. Check it out:

Emerging from a Cessna that had finished flitting over Silicon Valley's treetops and tilt-ups, 16-year-old Ryan Brown's first-ever jaunt in a small plane made him give an excited little jump when asked if it was fun.

"It sure was," shouted the soon-to-be 10th-grader at San Jose's Del Mar High. According to his mom, Moira Brown, Ryan suffers from autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. Noting that the pilot allowed him to briefly operate the controls, the teen added, "The best thing about it was learning to fly."

Mission accomplished for the organizers of "Take Flight for Kids," hosted Saturday at San Jose's Reid-Hillview Airport by the Valley Medical Center Foundation.