1996 Annual Report
Kathy Korbholz
Kathy Korbholz recalls the night in the late 1950s that her family took her 90-year-old great grandmother out to see Sputnik--the first Russian space satellite--pass over.
"We thought of all the changes she had seen from the early pioneer days to Sputnik," she recalls. Korbholz' great grandmother, Martha Erwin, was a pioneer, of sorts: She was born soon after her mother arrived in California's Central Valley in a covered wagon.
"I think life is more compressed now," Korbholz says of the pace of change today; technological revolutions are measured in months and years, not decades and centuries. Korbholz muses on what life will be like for her five grandchildren--her son Brian's children, Kasey and Sean; and her son Darin's Melissa, Cortney and Mitchel.
"Change, adapting to it and using it to create opportunities has been a part of my life," she says. In her life today, Korbholz--as an Associate Administrator of PAMF's Health Care Division--both wrestles with change herself and helps others deal with the challenges and opportunities change brings.
Korbholz, a fourth-generation native Californian, was raised in Los Angeles and met her husband, Bill, a computer scientist, through beach volleyball--he was coach of her church's volleyball team.
Professionally, Korbholz was propelled into health care in 1973 when she washired as a pulmonary-function technician at Santa Monica Hospital--which actually meant she ran the entire pulmonary laboratory, requiring some rapid learning and adapting to change on her part.
Her first acquaintance with computers was when she taught herself to convert a "Wang Basic" program to interpret blood gases. Then hospital officials "decided to put in a computerized EKG system and needed someone to run the system"--the first of a series of promotions over the next few years leading to Director of Cardiovascular Services.
In the late 1980s, the hospital asked her to create an off-site fitness center--the "Fit Dimension"--starting with an empty building: "We had shell space and in 90 days from the time we signed the construction contract we opened the doors to our first patients.... That was a fun project because I had total control. I picked the furniture, artwork, equipment, and hired staff who shared the same patient-centered values."
Korbholz learned more computer programs to create the Center's marketing and patient-education materials. "We were trying to do it on a shoestring, and it was fun to learn what a computer can do." She next was asked to temporarily supervise the hospital's Santa Monica Imaging Center--an added full-time job she still had 18 months later when she and Bill moved to the Palo Alto area. "We first came to the Clinic to get established with new physicians. Bill read a job posting for a `Patient Care Area Manager,' and he said, `You could do this job.' I applied and was hired," she recalls of her latest cycle of adapting to change. She later was promoted to Assistant Administrator, and recently was named one of two Associate Administrators. She now supervises Radiology, Radiation Oncology, Nuclear Medicine, Medical Records, Medical Transcription and Information Systems--all areas being impacted by high-technology changes.
"It's funny. I've never seen any of the promotions coming, and I never sought to move on. It just happens. I usually like what I'm doing and try to take a front-line perspective: what it is like for the patient or staff member, and how I can make it easier for them.
"It feels as if change comes slamming at us, and change is synonymous with stress--even good changes add stress." Recognizing that change causes stress is important, both for herself and for people with whom she works, she adds.
"I see my role as a change agent. Enabling people to accept change, feel comfortable with it--and not threatened by it--is going to be one of my big challenges in the next couple of years because there will be a lot of changes: moving into a new building, adopting an electronic medical record and examining a lot of our processes to make them more efficient," she notes.
"If you think about it, something as simple as having the human resources manual or forms online will save time doing non-value-added tasks, such as retyping or copying. When you need the information, you can get it off your computer, make the appropriate decision and move on." She balances stress in her own life in part by maintaining family ties with her grown children. "I can honestly say that my two sons and I would be friends even if I were not related to them," she says.
And she and Bill make it a point to set aside time for themselves to--literally--smell the flowers. Both are docent guides for the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District and for Edgewood Natural Preserve in San Mateo County, where they lead wildflower walks.
She edits the Friends of Edgewood newsletter and helped draft a master plan for the area, and Bill is president of the group.
She is dedicated to open space preservation: "I want to see it saved so when our great-grandchildren.