By Lois Thomson
Arjun Saluja laughs when he says he was “forced” into joining the board of Camillus Health Concern (CHC), but there’s no doubt that both sides are pleased with his decision.
Saluja tells how a few years ago he stepped down as Chairman of the Board of Community Health of South Florida (CHI), where he had served for more than 15 years. Following that, according to Saluja, his friend John Dubois “basically convinced me to join the Camillus Health Board, so I joined a year or two later.” And now, after serving during that time, including as Chairman of the Finance Committee, Saluja has been elected Board Chair.
Camillus Health Concern is a community health center that makes available primary care, behavioral health, oral health, and social services to those experiencing homelessness – men, women, and children – in Miami-Dade County. Saluja admitted he was hesitant at first about accepting the position, but eventually agreed because he believes “Camillus Health in particular serves a noble cause,” and the current political climate “has made it so much harder for (such facilities) to survive.”
With that in mind, Saluja believes he is blessed with certain business skills and strategic thinking to be able to serve Camillus Health, and that “we can one day become self-sufficient, perhaps even grow our footprint and open some health centers in other homeless shelters.”
Regarding CHC, he said not only are almost all of its patients uninsured, but they are also homeless, and truly need the services. In fact, Saluja pointed out that Federally Qualified Health Centers, like CHC, serve as many as one out of 10 people. “Last year almost 32 million people across the United States visited these centers for their healthcare needs.”
Because of the 40 years’ experience Saluja gained from his business ventures – which include manufacturing, distribution, and real estate – he believes he has the skills and knowledge to help. “By running my own businesses, you learn certain skills and try to apply them, keeping in mind the mission – seeing where the needs are, and providing services in those locations, looking for every possible grant, fundraising efforts, to name a few.”
Evan Piper, CHC board chair for the previous three years, originally appointed Saluja as finance chair, and now recently appointed the nominating committee that elected Saluja board chair. Piper said, “Arjun has a lot of knowledge and experience in this field. We’ve had a close working relationship and that makes an easy transition for him.”
Saluja acknowledged, “Evan’s a great guy, and I am glad that he will continue to serve as a board member. He has been associated with this cause for more than a dozen years and gives his all. There’s no question, a lot of credit goes to him for getting us to where we are today.” In stepping up as board chair, Saluja is not looking to make any wholesale changes, but rather is looking into more operational efficiencies, including eliminating excesses. “We need to become leaner and smarter. The bottom line is that to grow any business – and the word ‘grow’ in this sense means to be able to serve more patients – you have to become self-sufficient and not solely rely on government.”
He gave some examples, saying a physician may schedule appointments for 20 patients a day, but ends up only seeing 12 because of no-shows. “What can we do ahead of time to fill in those gaps, to make them more efficient?” He pointed out that there are homeless shelters that use health services and wondered, can we place someone there to make it easier on those people, rather than having them transport the patients to CHC? Or are we doing the best in our contracts with supplies?
“A lot of this is just basic business skills, but board positions are voluntary and sometimes not a lot of time gets spent on really looking at what we can do. So we will look at all of those initiatives and see what we can do better.”
Saluja never thought he would be serving in a position like this, but said that once he had established his businesses and realized he actually had some spare time, he felt the need: “That’s the way I was brought up, to give back.” He said his time with CHI showed him there are a lot of people with a lot of needs, with healthcare being a primary one. “I fell in love with the cause, and now I’m fully committed; this is my second go-round. I learned a lot from the first, and I hope to apply some of that (at CHC).”
For more information, call (305) 577-4840 or visit www.camillusHEALTH.org.
