UnityPoint changing health care

By Bill Leaver and Ted Townsend

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Iowa Health System last week became UnityPoint Health. This is much more than a name change. It represents our systemwide focus - to surround the patient with care that is coordinated among family physicians and specialists, hospitals and home health care. It is a focus that is consistent with our vision statement to provide the “best outcome for every patient every time.”

Beginning in 2008, our leadership recognized a need for change. Health care delivery was fragmented, episodic and economically unsustainable. The health care industry had evolved to reward volume of care and not the quality. It had lost some of its focus on the health and well-being of the patient.

As a result, people with diabetes, heart problems and other chronic diseases found themselves needing more health care services. The system wasn't designed to help these people live healthier. It was designed to treat them when they were sick.

So our vision statement provided direction for a transformation to value-based health care. It is a patient-centered model of delivering care that concentrates on coordinating a team around the patient to help them get healthy sooner and stay as healthy as possible. So they have a better quality of life and fewer episodes when their disease requires hospitalization.

We have built a health care organization to support our vision. It is led by physicians affiliated with UnityPoint Health, including nearly 900 physicians and providers working in more than 280 UnityPoint clinics. They are supported by state-of the art UnityPoint Health hospitals in eight regions in Iowa and Illinois and by our home health care enterprise, UnityPoint at Home.

Together, these affiliates will strive to achieve:

l The best clinical outcomes for our patients.

l The best patient experience.

l The most affordable price.

Imagine the ability to connect patients with their primary care physicians before the onset of chronic conditions or before their conditions require admission to the hospital. Imagine wrapping a coordinated interdisciplinary team around a patient - a team focused on all aspects of the patient's well being. Imagine having a care navigator who regularly monitors the patient and can connect the patient to whatever health care or community resources the patient needs.

Those capabilities are working now in UnityPoint regions in Iowa and Illinois. Our entities are leading a variety of care coordination innovations. A new day has come in health care: A unified team surrounding the patient with value.

Bill Leaver is UnityPoint Health president & CEO; Ted Townsend is president and CEO, UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's Hospital, Cedar Rapids. Comments: Bill.Leaver@unitypoint.org or Ted.Townsend@unitypoint.org