October 26, 2004 > Khalid Baig, MD Candidate for Washington Township Healthcare District Board 4 Year Seat

TCV: Why are you running for the board?

Baig: I am a family physician who has practiced in Fremont ever since I finished my training from New York City. I moved here because I believed it was a good family town. I established a practice here and my daughter was born at Washington Hospital. I really love Fremont. I have worked with the hospital for 13 years and have admitted many patients. I've been on almost every committee that anyone can be on over the past 13 years. I volunteer many hours of my time to Washington Hospital. Through all of this, I want to do what I think is best for our hospital and for our community by utilizing my experience and my resources.

TCV: What do you hope to accomplish, if elected?

Baig: Washington Hospital is a stand-alone hospital. We're facing significant changes. Reimbursements are dropping. We have more competition. We need to be able to accept every insurance plan possible so that we can serve all of the insured people in our district. We also want to be able to help people who are uninsured.

I would like to modernize the hospital, to introduce advanced information systems. These systems would include paperless electronic medical records and wireless communication. We will be able to communicate more effectively and improve patient care and productivity. This will keep us competitive with other hospitals that already have this technology. If I am an E.R. physician, I want data to be displayed to me right away.

I want to make our hospital into an advanced medical center to rival Stanford or UCSF. That includes making our intensive care and critical care units topnotch. I would like to advance our robotic surgery department. And, we need to expand our emergency room and improve the total time patients spend in the E.R.

TCV: What are the primary challenges currently facing the board and what skills do you have that will help meet these challenges?

Baig: Being a with the hospital for many years, both for outpatient and inpatient practices, I think I have the unique know-how, knowledge and experience to bring changes which the board has not brought on so far. Not only to provide the services for our community, but to stay ahead of the game. We want to attract people here. We've come a long way but we need to continue at a faster rate because if we don't, we will loose patients to other hospitals who have advanced technologies.

We need better outreach programs. The board needs to be more open, and to go out to the public. If I am elected to the board, I'm going to recommend a half hour slot for the public to come in and say whatever they want to say about healthcare and the hospital. It is our duty to inform the public and make them interested because they're the ones we are serving.

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