Fall 2004
 Integrated
care delivery system paves way for improved community health status
By Jay Eckersley, St. John's president and CEO
In July, St. John’s Health System celebrated its 10th
year as an integrated health system. Our health system has three
components:
St. John’s Hospitals,
St. John’s Clinic and
St. John’s Health
Plans. These components work together to provide high-quality and
affordable health care.
Earlier this year,
St. John’s was ranked No. 20 among the nation’s top 100
integrated health systems. This ranking is based on clinical and financial
performance and degree of integration.
St. John’s Health System is committed to improving the health status of
individuals and of the community as a whole. We strive to exceed the
expectations of our patients. Our health plans component contracts our
services to the community in a high-quality, yet affordable way.
There are many factors affecting the health of our community and we don’t
have control over some of them, but our integrated model allows us to
positively impact the factors in our control. The
physician/hospital/health plan partnership at St. John's makes it easier
to meet the health care needs of the growing number of people with chronic
and multiple chronic diseases.
We no longer focus only on event-related care at St. John’s. Our programs
and services are designed to educate our patients to empower them to take
care of themselves between events of care. The cover story of this issue
of Healthy People magazine is an excellent example of this concept. Our
new St. John’s Women’s Heart Center, which opened in August in St. John’s
Hammons Heart Institute, educates Ozarks women about heart health with a
focus on prevention.
Our new vascular center, which recently opened in St. John’s Hospital, is
an important example of our multidisciplinary approach helping our
patients manage and treat chronic disease. St. John’s Vascular Center
serves as a coordination point for the growing number of people in the
Ozarks who have an often undiagnosed, but dangerous condition called
peripheral vascular disease, or PVD.
As St. John's moves forward, our emphasis will continue to be improving
relationships to benefit our patients, area employers and their employees.
Please enjoy this issue of Healthy People magazine.
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