Catalina Island Health’s chief operating officer had good news for the Avalon City Council on Tuesday, Sept. 2.
Tim Kielpinski said CIH had received its first Measure B payment in April and will receive another installment in January 2026.
He said in July the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved two more $3-million awards to CIH.
The following is not a transcript but highlights of Kielpinski’s presentation.
“That is for $3 million in 2026 and another $3 million in 2027,” Kielpinski said.
He reminded the council that Measure B funds are exclusively for emergency medical services for hospitals.
Kielpinski said the board realized LA County hospitals were not getting reimbursed enough to keep their doors open.
Kielpinski said there were left over funds, about $4 million for each district.
He said CIH put in an application to pay for the new CT machine. “It was approved by the Supervisor [Janice] Hahn. It still needs to go through DHS [Department of Health Care Services] review, and legal review to make sure that a CT machine is an authorized Measure B purchase,” Kielpinski said.
He said in California, to have an emergency room you have to have a CT machine. “So we’re pretty confident that’s going to pass,” Kielpinski said.
He said the intergovernmental transfer paperwork kept going bac and fourth. “I think the city manager signed another document between him and LA Care,” Kielpinski said.
He said the money runs around in Sacramento, then goes to LA Care and then comes to Catalina Island Health.
Kielpinski said CIH got a $2 million grant from LA Care. Kielpinski said John Bakus, formerly CEO of LA Care, has joined the CIH board.
Kielpinski said in April, a hospitalist joined CIH. (According to the American Board of Physician Specialties, a hospitalist is a doctor who treats patients in the hospital.)
Kielpinski explained the impact of having such a specialist on board.
“There’s a thing called patient bed days,” Kielpinski said.
He described that as the number of nights that a hospital has a patient in bed. “Last June of ’24, we might have had 50. This past June, we had 280,” Kielpinski said.
“What that means is we are now able to accept community members that we weren’t able to accept before,” Kielpinski said.
He said they would be routinely medically evacuated off the island.
“Now we’re able to keep those people and either make their last days the best they can because now they get to be at this hospital with their family and near their home or we get them to recover and release them back to their back to their house,” Kielpinski said.
“He’s just a fabulous physician,” Kielpinski said.
He said CIH was able to bring over a pharmacist for backfill for Fridays and Saturdays.
He said Catalina Island Health was re-negotiating contracts with Anthem Blue Cross of California, Blue Shield of California, Providence Medicare Advantage, Health Net, Aetna, United Healthcare, Cigna, and Tri-West (for veterans).
He said Catalina Island Health doesn’t have a contract for Shield.
“So we are out of network for somebody that’s got Blue Shield. We’re trying to fix that so we cover all the products for all these major insurers,” Kielpinski said.
“So you’re saying that would hopefully include the HMOs, then,” said Mayor Anni Marshall.
Kielpinski also updated the council on the replacement hospital. He said they had added biologists to do a phase one look at the site.
“There’s some potential new property that we might get added onto that site in order to fit the housing unit that we’re trying to put there,” Kielpinski said.
“We’ve turned in our application to the city and we anticipate getting the response back from them sometime this week,” Kielpinski said.
He said this was the third time CIH had submitted the application. “We’ve gotten comments back. We’ve addressed those comments and we hope that this was the last time,” Kielpinski said.
According to Kielpinski, if that’s the case then CIH can start the public comment period in perhaps February of 2026. “Then to the Planning Commission in March of ’26,” he said.
“We’ve spent $2..9 million so far in the last two and a half years,” he said, referring to Measure H money for the new hospital building.
