Has Alaska found holy grail of cutting costs and improving healthcare?

[barryqwalsh]

Southcentral’s insight was that it was in the business of building trusting relationships with its community – not prescribing pills. Photograph: Chris Arend/Southcentral Foundation



An unexpected inspiration for the NHS might be Southcentral Foundation, the not-for-profit organisation delivering primary, community and mental health services for Alaska Native people in Southcentral Alaska. In the mid-1990s, Southcentral faced many of the challenges crippling NHS services today: four-week waits for routine primary care appointments and GPs coping with 40 or more appointments every day.

Has Alaska found holy grail of cutting costs and improving healthcare?

 

[Sun Devil 92]

For hard pressed NHS leaders, it might seem fanciful to take a year consulting the community. Southcentral argues that this process established the foundation for successful transformation and that skimping is a recipe for failure.

Its leaders describe their own eureka moment during those initial consultations. Many healthcare professionals still see their core product as tests, diagnoses and medications. Southcentral’s insight was that it was in the business of building trusting relationships with its community – not prescribing pills – so it could have a meaningful impact on how they lived their lives.

Southcentral reorganised staff in multidisciplinary primary care teams. A GP, nurse case manager, a medical assistant and administrative support staff are responsible for a population of around 1,400 patients. In later phases, it brought in dieticians, pharmacists, midwives, and counsellors to support the teams, rather than using separate clinics.

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Sounds a bit like the Maryland hospital article that Greenbeard posted.