Sansum Clinic is Now Part of Sutter Health

Dear Sansum Clinic Patients,

This past spring, we shared with you the exciting news that Sansum Clinic and Sutter Health had entered into discussions about joining together with the goal of providing greater access to high-quality healthcare to the Central Coast community well into the future. Today, we have officially kicked off the journey to become part of Sutter Health, with the signing of the legal agreements confirming the transaction.

We are very pleased about the partnership between these two like-minded organizations. Both organizations have fulfilled their not-for-profit missions to provide exceptional care across our communities for more than a century. We share key priorities, including our unwavering focus on patients, our commitment to recruit and retain the best and brightest physicians and employees, and our pursuit of innovation and promising technologies. We are both driven by a shared commitment to increasing access to excellent healthcare while strengthening sustainability and long-term service to the local community. We look forward to bringing the best of both organizations together as we continue toward further integration.

As health systems across the country face increasing industry and financial headwinds, from increasing labor and supply costs to caring for an aging population, to a shift to more care in clinic settings outside of a hospital, the joining of Sansum and Sutter will bring needed resources to our Central Coast community so we can continue to provide a full array of healthcare services to our patients for generations to come.

As we begin the process of Sansum becoming part of Sutter Health, we are not anticipating making changes to the health insurance plans we participate in, to your electronic health record, or to how you access our doctors – nor are there plans or expectations to reduce or eliminate services currently provided by Sansum; quite the opposite.

We anticipate making significant investments in our facilities and capital improvement projects that Sansum has not had the resources to undertake alone. This, combined with Sutter’s success with recruiting and retaining physicians, will have tremendous benefits for Santa Barbara and its surrounding communities in the form of more and better access to high-quality healthcare.

We look forward to keeping you updated as we embark on the journey of joining our organizations together.

Sincerely,