Essentia Health is an integrated healthcare system with facilities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and North Dakota. [1] [2] As of 2022 it has over 14,000 employees, including 2,125 physicians and credentialed practitioners. [3] [4] [5] The network includes 14 hospitals, 70 clinics, six long-term care facilities, six assisted and independent living facilities, and one research & education institute. [1] [6] [5] Essentia Health was accredited as an Accountable Care Organization by the National Committee for Quality Assurance in 2013. [1] [6] [7] [8]
Essentia Health was formed in 2004, as the parent company of the partnership between the Benedictine Health System and St. Mary's/Duluth Clinic Health System (SMDC). [9] Essentia Health acquired Dakota Clinic/Innovis Health in January 2008. [10] In 2010, Essentia Health integrated the resources of all of its member organizations – SMDC Health System, Innovis Health, Brainerd Lakes Health, Essentia Community Hospitals and Clinics, and Essentia Institute of Rural Health – and united them under the one name, Essentia Health. [11] [12] [13] In 2022, Essentia Health acquired Mid Dakota Clinic. [14] In October 2022, Essentia Health and Marshfield Clinic Health System announced merger discussions. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed to evaluate how the two organizations might combine to form an integrated regional health system. [15] After almost two years of discussion, the merger was called off in January 2024, although the leaders did not rule out future collaboration attempts. [16]
Essentia Health has more than two dozen Catholic-sponsored clinics, hospitals, and other facilities. [17] [18] The roots of Essentia's Catholic facilities trace back to a group of Benedictine nuns who established St. Mary's Hospital, Essentia Health's oldest hospital, in Duluth in 1888. [17]
In 2018, Essentia Health announced plans to build a new medical facility that would be replacing the current St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth. The project was initially set at $800 million, but an additional $100 million was required to add an additional patient floor and outpatient care spaces. Changes in market conditions were also a cause for the increase. The building early 2023, with 98% completed in February. [19] In July 2023, they completed the moving of patients from the old location. [20]
Mercy Medical Center is a Catholic hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The smaller of two metro hospitals, Mercy frequently ranks as either the best in Iowa or one of the top three. Mercy is a non-profit, acute-care medical center with a level III trauma center. Mercy Cedar Rapids is independent and not directly associated with other Mercy hospitals across the state and country. In addition to the non-profit hospital and clinics, Mercy operates outpatient and urgent-care clinics in a for-profit partnership with MercyCare Community Physicians.
Providence Health & Services is a not-for-profit Catholic health care system operating multiple hospitals and medical clinics across seven states, with headquarters in Renton, Washington. The health system includes 51 hospitals, more than 800 non-acute facilities, and numerous assisted living facilities in the western Half of the United States (Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, New Mexico, and Texas. Providence Health & Services was founded by the Sisters of Providence in 1859 and merged with St. Joseph Health in 2016.
In the healthcare industry, pay for performance (P4P), also known as "value-based purchasing", is a payment model that offers financial incentives to physicians, hospitals, medical groups, and other healthcare providers for meeting certain performance measures. Clinical outcomes, such as longer survival, are difficult to measure, so pay for performance systems usually evaluate process quality and efficiency, such as measuring blood pressure, lowering blood pressure, or counseling patients to stop smoking. This model also penalizes health care providers for poor outcomes, medical errors, or increased costs. Integrated delivery systems where insurers and providers share in the cost are intended to help align incentives for value-based care.
Marshfield Clinic Health System is an integrated health system serving Wisconsin founded in 1916. The system contains several hospitals and many clinics throughout Wisconsin, as well as a medical research institute and an education division, and employs more than 1,200 doctors and other clinicians.
Avera Health is a regional health system based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States, comprising more than 300 locations in 100 communities throughout South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and North Dakota. Avera serves a geographical footprint of more than 72,000 square miles and 86 counties, and a population of nearly 1 million.
SSM Health is a Catholic, not-for-profit United States health care system with 11,000 providers and nearly 39,000 employees in four states: Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin.
SMDC Health System was a hospital network with hospitals and clinics in northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin and also serving parts of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The four hospitals were St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth, Minnesota, SMDC Medical Center in Duluth, St. Mary's Hospital of Superior, Wisconsin and Pine Medical Center in Sandstone, Minnesota. SMDC included the Duluth Clinic, a group of physicians who provided care at several locations.
Advocate Aurora Health (AAH) is a non-profit health care system with dual headquarters located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Downers Grove, Illinois. As of 2021, the AAH system has 26 hospitals and more than 500 sites of care, with 75,000 employees, including 10,000 employed physicians. The health system formed as a result of a merger between Illinois-based Advocate Health Care and Wisconsin-based Aurora Health Care. AAH is a teaching affiliate of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Dignity Health was a California-based not-for-profit public-benefit corporation that operated hospitals and ancillary care facilities in three states. Dignity Health was the fifth-largest hospital system in the nation and the largest not-for-profit hospital provider in California.
The Brooklyn Hospital Center is a 464-licensed-bed, full-service community teaching hospital located in Downtown Brooklyn, New York City. The hospital was founded in 1845. It is affiliated with the Mount Sinai Health System, and serves a diverse population from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds.
Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) was a national Catholic healthcare system, with headquarters in Englewood, Colorado. CHI was a nonprofit, faith-based health system formed, in 1996, through the consolidation of three Catholic health systems. It was one of the United States' largest healthcare systems. In February 2019, CHI merged with Dignity Health, forming CommonSpirit Health.
Trinity Health is an American not-for-profit Catholic health system operating 92 hospitals in 22 states, including 120 continuing care locations encompassing home care, hospice, PACE and senior living facilities. Based in Livonia, Michigan, Trinity Health employs more than 120,000 people including 5,300 physicians.
HealthPartners is an integrated, nonprofit health care provider and health insurance company located in Bloomington, Minnesota offering care, coverage, research and education to its members, patients and the community.
An accountable care organization (ACO) is a healthcare organization that ties provider reimbursements to quality metrics and reductions in the cost of care. ACOs in the United States are formed from a group of coordinated health-care practitioners. They use alternative payment models, normally, capitation. The organization is accountable to patients and third-party payers for the quality, appropriateness and efficiency of the health care provided. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an ACO is "an organization of health care practitioners that agrees to be accountable for the quality, cost, and overall care of Medicare beneficiaries who are enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service program who are assigned to it".
Benefis Health System is a nonprofit independent health care system based in the city of Great Falls in the state of Montana in the United States. The system owns 516-bed Benefis Hospital, Sletten Cancer Institute, Benefis Mercy Flight, 146-bed Benefis Extended Care Center, 12-bed Peace Hospice of Montana, Benefis Quick Care, and Benefis Physician Associates. As of March 2011, it was Montana's largest hospital.
Atrius Health is a Massachusetts based healthcare organization acquired by Optum on May 31, 2022. Atrius Health has a system of connected care for adult and pediatric patients in eastern and central Massachusetts. Atrius Health's medical practices work together with the home health and hospice services of its VNA Care subsidiary and in collaboration with hospital partners, community specialists and skilled nursing facilities.
The Medicare Physician Group Practice (PGP) demonstration was Medicare's first physician pay-for-performance (P4P) initiative. The demonstration established incentives for quality improvement and cost efficiency. Ten large physician groups participated in the demonstration, which started on April 1, 2005, and ran for 5 years. Previous funding arrangements, like the volume performance standard (VPS) and the sustainable growth rate (SGR) did not provide incentives to slow the growth of services. The Medicare PGP demonstration was intended to overcome that limitation in previous funding arrangements.
Bellin Health System is a health care service headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Bellin Health serves northeastern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.