Integrated Healthcare System

Vertically integrated health care system that I have chosen is the Veterans Administration (VA) it's accountable for a large patient population for military veterans. As stated, The Veterans Health Administration is America’s largest integrated health care system with over 1,700 sites of care, serving 8.76 million Veterans each year (VA.GOV). The services that's provided to veterans is health care, rehabilitation, employment, education, home loan guaranties, and life insurance coverage. VA control costs by buying in bulk and control costs by engaging in a deep, single-source relationship with each patient. The Assistant Secretary for Management oversees all resource requirements, development and implementation of agency performance measures,

There are several different reasons as to why a long term care facility would seek to join either an integrated health system (IHS) or an integrated health network (IHN). The motivation to participate typically comes from either a requirement or eagerness to enhance the organization's situation within the long term care environment. Organization chose to incorporate an integrated system or network when the goals of the whole outweigh the goals of the individual organization's current state.

The fundamental ideas behind making such a radical change from a single entity practice to a multiple entity practice is simple. Market forces are driving health care prices drastically down and profit from treatments and services alone are no longer adequate for survival. In addition, insurance companies are beginning to dictate where their customers receive health care and also the price a provider is paid for services rendered. Most insurance providers are beginning to look for health care organizations strategically positioned to offer medical services at reasonable prices, diversified medical services under one roof, and demonstrate strong alignments with leading medical centers in the area. As a result, HeartCare Midwest must undergo a facelift to survive changes in the health care industry.

The demand for cost containment, the growth of purchaser influence, the decline trend in inpatient utilization, and the demands of managed care organizations for efficiency, cost containment, coordination of services, and accountability for service outcomes has changed hospitals strategic planning. Hospitals need to reconfigure and reorganize their health service delivery in order to meet the demands of managed care. To make their organization attractive to the managed care industry, system integration strategies began to emerge such as horizontal and vertical integration (Sultz & Young, 2009, p. 103).

In 2014, Optum, UnitedHealth Group’s business platform has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MedSynergies, Inc., to help physician group enhance patient care and improve practice performance. MedSynergies will provide Optum with innovative physician practice management capabilities that complement and advance the company’s focus on helping care providers improve patient care and outcomes, and

Healthcare Partners a company that provides a service of managed care for almost 765,000 patients and makes up various medical groups as well as doctors who are affiliated with Healthcare Partners in “California, Arizona, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico.” As DaVita’s website states, “In November of 2012 DaVita and Healthcare partners joined forces to become one of the nation’s largest and most innovative healthcare communities” and pledged as DaVita Healthcare Partners Inc., to continue together “committed to clinical excellence” and to “improve patients health and quality of life.” (DaVita Health Care Partners ). Retrieved April 18, 2014 from http://davitahealthcarepartners.com/

These efforts include early intervention, appropriate treatment, use of medications, and suicide prevention. The AAFP being in great support of integrated health care continue to struggle with the rates of reimbursements and continues to advocate for proper payment structures to enable them to support and implement the integrated process into their own private practices. The Affordable Care Act specified that Medicaid payments for primary care services would be at Medicare levels for primary care physicians in 2013 and 2014. Since then this provision has expired and instead of implementing new payment proposals the Center for Medicare and Medicaid services reverted to rates that proved to be lower than those most state Medicaid payors. (Blackwelder,

The world of health care is constantly changing everyday by it changing there are less hospitals being opened than clinics. It seems as if people will rather open a clinic this a hospital in which would have all things necessary for health care. Some clinics will specialize in a certain area of health care and not all. The only good part about this is that there are some clinics that are offering emergency services. In my geographic area, there are both horizontally and vertically integrated health care systems available.

Hospital Alliances or merger is rapidly growing in the health care industry. Hospitals could use merger or acquisition for acquiring a larger market share in any prevailing financial circumstance. Strategic alliances are arrangement between two or more organizations for the purpose of ongoing cooperation and mutual gain/risk sharing (Burns, Bradley & Weiner (2012). Joint ventures, mergers and other arrangements between providers are most often intended to re-align the interests of the individual providers with the consumer and public policy goals for a less costly, more efficient, high quality, accessible - and above all else, coordinated - health care system. Organizations form alliances with the expected return or benefit of improved financial

Strategic alliances have been incorporated into the healthcare field as an ever-present operational and strategic consideration (Kaluzny, Zuckerman, & Ricketts, 2002). Strategic alliances are designed to achieve strategic purposes not attainable by a single organization, providing flexibility and responsiveness while retaining the basic fabric of participating organizations (Kaluzny, Zuckerman, & Ricketts, 2002). Strategic alliances should be entered very carefully and with a strategic plan. A strategic alliance is not as complex and not as everlasting as a bonded endeavor.

Another example of integrated delivery systems involves competitive prices with consistent level of quality. In analyzing the healthcare delivery system, "quality" healthcare is expected to be given at all times to the patients. This leaves the providers looking for ways to distinguish themselves, perhaps by price, or by specific terms of quality such as being specialized in a certain field of

From the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010 through the end of last year, merger and acquisition transactions involving acute-care hospitals increased 55% from 66 announced deals to 102 (Barlas, 2014). This movement is increasing for reasons that are evident. For providers, it is becoming a challenging environment to be a small medical practice. The system is going through a difficult switch to electronic medical records, which is expensive and requires specialized experience to avoid downsides. These challenges push physicians to pursue employment in large organizations rather than solo ownerships or partnerships in small

To capitalize on this market, Emory Healthcare decided that brining the physician to the patient will not only increase their patient base, but it will add tremendous value to their patient services. As stated by Fortenberry (2010), for an organization to capitalize on growth opportunities to increase the likelihood of institutional survival, growth, and prosperity they must formulate appropriate expansion strategies. Igor Ansoff’s Matrix, (Fortenberry 2010) the Product -Market expansion Grid is a well- known tool that organizations use to identify growth opportunities. (p.46)

The acquisition of Covidien plc by Medtronic plc, alleviated pain, restore health and extended lives of patients. Just like how usually in a marriage, they bring together their capabilities with the objective of taking care of their children - Covidien and Medtronic join together their innovative and extensive capabilities with an objective to solve healthcare’s biggest challenge, which is, expanding access and improving clinical outcomes, while lowering costs. The acquisition was done to build on the strengths and the weaknesses of the acquiring company, and together they can have a real and meaningful impact on people’s lives by helping treat more people in more ways and around the world. With the integration of Covidien, they are able to

This study examined whether the two health system formations analyzed in the previous essay, Health System A and Health System B, can pass the antitrust safety zone test for horizontal hospital mergers and acquisitions. The main data source for this essay is MarketScan® Commercial Claims and Encounters Database, which is a unique private insurance claims database that includes 23 million employees, dependents and retirees from around 100 large private employers (Adamson, Chang & Hansen, 2008). This study collected patient flow information from this detailed database, which includes patient and hospital characteristics.