Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 22, 1995 TAG: 9510230044
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Dr. Randolph Gordon, who takes office next month as Virginia's new health commissioner, is a man who can make a difference, said a Roanoke doctor who oversaw Gordon's residency in family practice.
"I expect great things from him. He's a thoughtful, bright young man who is willing to listen," said Dr. Al Hagy. "He'll gather all the information, stutter a couple of times, and come out with the right answer."
Hagy runs the residency program for Roanoke Memorial Hospitals, and Gordon was in it from 1984 to 1988. Gordon was chief resident during his last year. When he was in Roanoke, his wife, Kimberly, a physical therapist, worked at Lewis-Gale Hospital.
Even while he was a medical resident, Gordon had what Hagy described as a keen interest in public health, especially in disease prevention.
"I hope against hope that he won't be a victim of a political war, though," Hagy said.
The health commissioner is a political appointment that serves at the pleasure of the governor. The Health Department has had an acting director since June 1994 when Gov. George Allen, in what became labeled as "Bloody Friday," purged 14 department heads, including Health Commissioner Robert Stroube, a 20-year veteran of state service.
When Gordon replaces Acting Commissioner Donald Stern on Nov. 6, he will take control of a department with a budget of $303 million and 4,900 employee positions. The number of employees is down some 300 because of a buyout Allen initiated, and Gordon likely will have to find ways to deliver health care to the state's needy without increasing either staff or requests for money.
The top health job will be a homecoming for the 37-year-old Gordon, who is a Richmond native and a graduate of the University of Virginia and the Medical College of Virginia.
Gordon has prepared himself for a public health role from the beginning. After his residency in Roanoke, he got a master of public health degree from Johns Hopkins University, and spent a year in a preventive medicine residency there. Next, he became director of the Weld County Health Department in Greeley, Colo. Currently, he is associate director for managed care in the public health practice program office of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Officials who worked with Gordon during his 1988-93 tenure with the Weld County department say he is more than qualified for the challenges in Virginia.
"I don't have a bad thing to say about Randy except he left," said Dale Hall, a Weld County commissioner.
Gordon took over a department that was in disarray and turned it around, Hall said.
She said he was particularly effective in getting the private medical community involved in a clinic for teen mothers and in pushing for better health care access in rural areas. Coincidentally, the Virginia State Board of Health, which governs the Health Department, just voted to take an aggressive role in promoting better health care in underserved areas.
Some of the health-care issues that now face Virginia were true, too, for Weld County, Hall said. Weld encompasses 160,000 square miles and has a population of 70,000, half of it in the county seat of Greeley.
John Pickle, who was hired by Gordon as assistant director in Weld County and who succeeded him as director, praised Gordon for "a level of teamwork rare in the medical field."
An example of that, Pickle said, was how Gordon was able to get the owner of a problem landfill in Weld County to sit down with community environmentalists and work out a solution rather than take the issue to court.
Gordon would rather mediate than be hostile, Pickle said.
"Randy likes to work out unique approaches, not that he won't hold the line, however," Pickle said.
The position also will give him an opportunity to build a health department based on a public health plan he helped create while at the CDC, where he also served as acting director for the division of public health systems.
Gordon is a co-author of "Blueprint for a Health Community: A Guide for Local Health Departments." In an article planned for an upcoming CDC publication, he points out that health departments have new opportunities to develop "prevention-oriented" relationships with the private health-care system.
The article also notes that opportunities to promote prevention care are constant in health maintenance organizations, where patients are directed toward certain hospitals and physicians who have contracted to provide care at a set fee. Those managed care groups insist on measuring performance and quality of the health care providers, the article said. Among examples given are that the plans measure the effectiveness of screenings for cancers of the breast, cervix and colon, as well as melanoma, a skin cancer.
Managed care places a primary care physician in the role of being responsible for a person's health and also for preventing a person from overusing health care. Preventing illness is a key to cost control in such a system.
Virginia has been a leader in experimenting with managed care. It is in the process of moving Medicaid recipients into managed care, and eventually hopes to do the same with Medicare recipients.
Becoming Virginia's commissioner is "a great opportunity" to look at the role of public health when that role is changing and to search for ways to improve public health by working with managed care and with the private sector, Gordon said.
"Most people who go through medical training realize we're there trying to fix disasters after they've occurred. I want to prevent them," he said in a telephone interview.
Another challenge for Gordon will be carrying out the Allen administration's directives to shore up family values.
"The government obviously should be supportive of family structures and family values," Gordon said. "How that translates into specific programs and delivery of programs is something I need to get more into after I get there."
Gordon's arrival will bring him in touch with a former classmate, Dr. Molly Rutledge, director of the Roanoke and Alleghany health departments. In 1992-93, the two were participants in a yearlong Public Health Leadership Institute sponsored by the CDC and the University of California to help health directors to become good community leaders.
Institute members studied together for a week in California and then stayed in touch by electronic mail. Rutledge said the prospect of working with Gordon is exciting, especially because he is interested in fostering public and private partnerships. She is already working with area hospitals to arrange clinics to replace ones the health departments closed this year.
In addition to a reunion with Rutledge, Gordon soon will find himself face to face with his Roanoke Memorial connection. One of his first official duties will be to decide on the merit of a proposal from Radford Community Hospital and Carilion Health System, which owns Roanoke Memorial, to build a new Radford hospital. There is a counterproposal from a Carilion competitor.
Gordon's decision is due by Dec. 8. He was only half-joking when he said he might have to disqualify himself.
by CNB