The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) is a non-profit health organization based in Anchorage, Alaska, which provides health services to 158,000 Alaska Natives and American Indians in Alaska. Established in 1997, ANTHC is a consortium of the tribal regional health organizations. The board of directors for ANTHC equally represent all tribal regions of Alaska and each region has parity.
ANTHC is co-manager, with the Southcentral Foundation, of the Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC), a 150-bed facility in Anchorage with a staff including more than 250 physicians and 700 nurses. ANMC is a level II trauma center, the highest level that can be achieved in Alaska. It has received Magnet Status for nursing excellence, a designation achieved by only about 7 percent of all hospitals nationwide. It is the only tribal operated hospital with Magnet Status in the United States. ANMC opened in its current facility in May 1997. ANMC has a hybrid operating room. ANTHC pays market rate compensation to all employees to retain and attract the best qualified Alaska Native professionals and top quality providers and engineers[ citation needed ].
In 1998, ANTHC launched the Alaska Federal Health Care Access Network (AFHCAN) to provide primary and specialty telehealth services to Alaska Native communities. [1]
In 2003, ANTHC developed the Alaska Dental Health Aide Program to train dental therapists who could provide culturally appropriate education and routine dental services under the supervision of a dentist to high-risk residents of rural villages. These therapists now provide dedicated access to oral health care for more than 35,000 individuals, most of whom lived in communities that typically did not have a dedicated provider. [2]
In 2014, a new day surgery opened followed by new Infusion Center and Internal Medicine Clinics in 2016. In January 2017, ANTHC opened a new 202 bed patient housing facility which includes Ronald McDonald House on the 6th floor. This is the first partnership of a Ronald McDonald House with a tribal organization.
ANTHC is part of the Alaska Tribal Health System and is one of 22 co-signers of the Alaska Tribal Health Compact, [3] a self-governance agreement with the Indian Health Service.
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium Land Transfer Act (H.R. 623; 113th Congress) is a bill that would transfer some land in Alaska from the federal government to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to be used to build a patient housing facility so that the organization can treat people who travel there from distant rural areas. [5] The bill passed the United States House of Representatives on October 29, 2013. [6]
Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement of health via the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in people. Health care is delivered by health professionals and allied health fields. Medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, midwifery, nursing, optometry, audiology, psychology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, athletic training, and other health professions all constitute health care. The term includes work done in providing primary care, secondary care, tertiary care, and public health.
The University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) is a public university in Anchorage, Alaska. UAA also administers four community campuses spread across Southcentral Alaska: Kenai Peninsula College, Kodiak College, Matanuska–Susitna College, and Prince William Sound College. Between the community campuses and the main Anchorage campus, roughly 15,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students are currently enrolled at UAA. It is Alaska's largest institution of higher learning and the largest university in the University of Alaska System.
Telehealth is the distribution of health-related services and information via electronic information and telecommunication technologies. It allows long-distance patient and clinician contact, care, advice, reminders, education, intervention, monitoring, and remote admissions. Telemedicine is sometimes used as a synonym, or is used in a more limited sense to describe remote clinical services, such as diagnosis and monitoring. When rural settings, lack of transport, a lack of mobility, conditions due to outbreaks, epidemics or pandemics, decreased funding, or a lack of staff restrict access to care, telehealth may bridge the gap as well as provide distance-learning; meetings, supervision, and presentations between practitioners; online information and health data management and healthcare system integration. Telehealth could include two clinicians discussing a case over video conference; a robotic surgery occurring through remote access; physical therapy done via digital monitoring instruments, live feed and application combinations; tests being forwarded between facilities for interpretation by a higher specialist; home monitoring through continuous sending of patient health data; client to practitioner online conference; or even videophone interpretation during a consult.
Iḷisaġvik College is a public tribal land-grant community college in Utqiaġvik, Alaska. Operated by the North Slope Borough, a home rule government of the Iñupiat, it is the only tribally controlled college in Alaska, and it is the northernmost accredited community college in the United States. The college is located within the boundaries of the North Slope. It is an 89,000-square-mile (230,000 km2) region of Arctic tundra. It is connected to the 414-mile (666 km) Dalton Highway only during the winter, by an ice road for local residents. The community can also be reached by plane.
The Indian Health Service (IHS) is an operating division (OPDIV) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). IHS is responsible for providing direct medical and public health services to members of federally recognized Native American Tribes and Alaska Native people. IHS is the principal federal health care provider and health advocate for American Indian people.
The Alaska Federal Health Care Access Network (AFHCAN) is managed by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC). ANTHC is a tribal organization, as defined in 25 U.S.C. 450(b)(c) and, along with the Southcentral Foundation, jointly manages and operates the Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC), provides tertiary and specialty healthcare services in Alaska, United States.
Services for mental health disorders provide treatment, support, or advocacy to people who have psychiatric illnesses. These may include medical, behavioral, social, and legal services.
Connected health is a socio-technical model for healthcare management and delivery by using technology to provide healthcare services remotely. Connected health, also known as technology enabled care (TEC) aims to maximize healthcare resources and provide increased, flexible opportunities for consumers to engage with clinicians and better self-manage their care. It uses readily available consumer technologies to deliver patient care outside of the hospital or doctor's office. Connected health encompasses programs in telehealth, remote care and disease and lifestyle management, often leverages existing technologies such as connected devices using cellular networks and is associated with efforts to improve chronic care. However, there is an increasing blur between software capabilities and healthcare needs whereby technologists are now providing the solutions to support consumer wellness and provide the connectivity between patient data, information and decisions. This calls for new techniques to guide Connected Health solutions such as "design thinking" to support software developers in clearly identifying healthcare requirements, and extend and enrich traditional software requirements gathering techniques.
Southcentral Foundation (SCF) is an Alaska Native healthcare organization established by Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI) in 1982. Its objective is to improve the health and social conditions of Alaska Native and American Indian people by promoting cultural values and empowering individuals and families to lead healthier lives. SCF operates under the ownership, management, and guidance of Alaska Native and American Indian communities, emphasizing their direct involvement in decision-making processes.
The Alaska Native Medical Center (ANMC) is a non-profit health center based in Anchorage, Alaska, United States, which provides medical services to 158,000 Alaska Natives and other Native Americans in Alaska. It acts as both the secondary and tertiary care referral hospital for the Alaska Region of the Indian Health Service (IHS). Established in 1997, ANMC is jointly owned and managed by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and Southcentral Foundation as well as tribal governments, and their regional health organizations.
The practice of dental care in rural Alaska is overseen by the American Dental Association and other organizations under the jurisdiction of dentistry in the United States, with major differences from dentistry in the contiguous states. The oral health situation among the Alaskan Native population is among the most severe globally, with notably high rates of oral disease. Children in this population aged 2 to 5 years have almost five times the amount of tooth decay as children of the same age elsewhere in the United States, and adults have 2.5 times the amount of tooth decay as adults elsewhere. Other factors impacting the population's dental health include the difficulty of obtaining fresh food in remote locations, lack of fluoridated running water, and reduced access to education on the importance of dental health.
Helen Newberry Joy Hospital & Healthcare Center is a rural health care facility. Established in 1965, the hospital is located in the Village of Newberry in the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
The Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB) is a non-profit tribal advisory organization in Portland, Oregon, run and organized by participating tribes. It was established in 1972 to focus on four areas as they pertain to the health of Native people: health promotion and disease prevention, legislative and policy analysis, training and technical assistance, and surveillance and research. It serves 43 federally recognized tribes in Oregon, Washington and Idaho, with each tribe appointing a delegate to the board that oversees the NPAIHB. The board meets quarterly to discuss current projects and issues.
Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) is a non-profit medical, dental, vision and mental health organization serving the health interests of the residents of Southeast Alaska.
Telepharmacy is the delivery of pharmaceutical care via telecommunications to patients in locations where they may not have direct contact with a pharmacist. It is an instance of the wider phenomenon of telemedicine, as implemented in the field of pharmacy. Telepharmacy services include drug therapy monitoring, patient counseling, prior authorization and refill authorization for prescription drugs, and monitoring of formulary compliance with the aid of teleconferencing or videoconferencing. Remote dispensing of medications by automated packaging and labeling systems can also be thought of as an instance of telepharmacy. Telepharmacy services can be delivered at retail pharmacy sites or through hospitals, nursing homes, or other medical care facilities.
The Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium Land Transfer Act is a bill that would transfer some land in Alaska from the federal government to the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, a non-profit health organization. The land will be used to build a patient housing facility so that the organization can treat people who travel there from distant rural areas. The bill passed in the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress. The bill was signed into law.
Traditional Alaska Native medicine is a cultural style of healing that has been passed down from one generation of Alaska Native peoples to the next and is based on success over time and oral tradition. In contrast to an allopathic or western view of medicine, traditional Alaska Native medicine believes that illness stems from an individual's disharmony with the environment and healing must therefore begin in the person's spirit.
Valerie Nurr'araaluk Davidson is an American politician who briefly served as the 13th lieutenant governor of Alaska, from October to December 2018. She was sworn in after Byron Mallott's abrupt resignation from the post on October 16, 2018. In April 2020, Davidson became the 12th president of Alaska Pacific University, the first woman to serve as the university's president. She took a leave of absence from Alaska Pacific University to become interim president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium in March 2021. Her presidency of the Consortium became permanent in June of the same year and she resigned from Alaska Pacific University at that time. Davidson later became CEO of the Consortium as well. She left the Consortium in May 2024.
The United States has many regions which have been described as medical deserts, with those locations featuring inadequate access to one or more kinds of medical services. An estimated thirty million Americans, many in rural regions of the country, live at least a sixty-minute drive from a hospital with trauma care services. Regions with higher rates of Medicaid and Medicare patients, as well those who lack any health insurance coverage, are less likely to live within an hour of a hospital emergency room. Although concentrated in rural regions, health care deserts also exist in urban and suburban areas, particularly in predominantly Black communities in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City. Racial demographic disparities in healthcare access are also present in rural areas, particularly in Native American communities which experience worse health outcomes and barriers to accessing quality medical care. Limited access to emergency room services, as well as medical specialists, leads to increases in mortality rates and long-term health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes.
The Maniilaq Association is a tribally-operated health and social services organization serving the Northwest Arctic Borough and the North Slope community of Point Hope. Maniilaq has over 500 employees and is the largest employer in the region.
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