February 6, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Fremont-Rideout Health Group Appoints CEO 

(YUBA CITY – Calif.) - The Board of Directors of the Fremont-Rideout Health Group (FRHG) of Yuba City has appointed Theresa Hamilton CEO of the not-for-profit community-based health care system. She is the first woman CEO in the organization's 100 year history and takes her place among several other women CEOs at area hospitals.

Over the last six years with FRHG, Ms. Hamilton has been active as Vice President, Clinical and Support Services, with over 600 people reporting to her. More recently, she has served as Vice President, Physician Development and Joint Ventures. As such, she has worked with the University of California Medical Center to expand the FRHG/UCD partnership at the Cancer Center to serve greater numbers of patients in the North County communities.

Under her leadership, the Imaging Department at Fremont Medical Center has been renovated and expanded to include a separate women's imaging center. The CT Scanner at Rideout Memorial Hospital has been upgraded from a 32-image slice to a 64-imaging slice doubling the diagnostic capability and speed benefiting both physician's diagnostics and the critical Emergency Room needs. Also, Ms. Hamilton oversaw the expansion of the Catherization Lab's pre- and post-procedural area with the addition of 10 more beds allowing for focused patient care.

During the startup of the Cardiac Program, Ms. Hamilton was instrumental in recruiting a nationally recognized Cardiothoracic Surgeon from the famous Kettering Heart Center in Kettering, Ohio to head up the program. She also recruited cardiac anesthesiologists and the cardiac nursing staff.  To date, the Heart Program Team has performed over 700 procedures including open heart, by-pass, and thoracic (lung) surgeries.

Ms. Hamilton's early experience at the famous Lahey Clinic's in Boston was the beginning of a long-term interest in the treatment and cure of cancer and its associated diseases. She has been involved with the development of the FRHG Cancer Center facilities and staffing for several years. The Cancer Center received full accreditation from the American College of Surgeons in 2005.

For the last several months, she has been FRHG's interface with the Architects and the Engineers on the planning and design of the new outpatient Medical Office Building to be built on Almond Street adjacent to Fremont Medical Center. This new facility will serve the dynamic growth for outpatient services. She has also provided oversight for the new patient hospital tower to be built at Rideout.

"The last six years with FRHG has enabled me to the work with the medical/clinical service-