Access to Care
A healthy life shouldn’t come with long waits, inconvenience, wasted time or frustration. That’s why we offer highly personalized care when, where and how our patients want to receive it. With online services and hospital and clinic locations throughout Northern California, we’re always close by when our patients need us.
Sutter Health Plus expands HMO network
Sutter Health Plus continued to grow in 2015, bringing its affordably priced HMO products to 22,000 new enrollees and expanding to serve Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sonoma counties. Sutter Health Plus also joined CaliforniaChoice, the state’s leading private health benefits exchange, which offers health care coverage options to more than 12,500 small-business employers. Today, the health plan network includes 25 hospitals and campuses, dozens of conveniently located facilities, and 5,300 providers serving 40,000 members throughout 14 Northern California counties. Sutter Health decided to start its own health plan as a way to partner directly with patients to manage their total health needs, including quality and cost of care.
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Sutter Health Plus growth in 2015
Sutter EHR enables care, vital patient connections
In 2015, all 20 Sutter Health acute-care affiliates across Northern California completed implementation of Sutter’s electronic health record (EHR), joining all five Sutter Health medical foundations that have already used the Sutter EHR since 2010. With the Sutter EHR, physicians are able to share patients’ records and information, such as medication lists and medical histories, across the Sutter network—providing better care for patients.
million moments of care
million patient records
million active patients
million patients using My Health Online
CVS partnership improves patient access, medication adherence
Providing our patients with high-quality, convenient care means staying connected even when they receive this care outside of our Sutter Health network. Under a new partnership, CVS Health will securely and safely provide prescription and visit information from MinuteClinics—the retail medical clinic of CVS Health—to Sutter Health’s electronic health record (EHR) for Sutter patients who seek care through the nearly 1,000 MinuteClinics nationwide or have prescriptions filled at more than 7,800 CVS/pharmacy retail locations. MinuteClinic nurse practitioners and/or physician assistants provide treatment for common illnesses and administer wellness and prevention services, including health-condition monitoring for patients with chronic diseases.
“We want to help ensure that when our patients seek afterhours or other care outside our facilities, they have trustworthy options and their medical records securely travel with them.” — Sutter Health Chief Medical Officer Stephen Lockhart, M.D., Ph.D.
See how we grow: How Sutter Health has added, expanded its facilities throughout Northern California
Sutter Health was named “Owner of the Year” in 2015 by Engineering News-Record California for its systemwide construction investment, innovation and sustainable design and commitment to community benefit. Explore how we’ve grown in 2015 to better meet our patients’ needs.
New Sacramento medical center opened its doors
CPMC achieved new hospital construction milestone
PAMF expanded services throughout Bay Area
- Pediatrics, family medicine and internal medicine, as well as digital imaging services, lab and urgent care, at its new Los Gatos Center
- Gastroenterology services in the San Jose/Los Gatos area
- Pediatrics, family medicine, internal medicine, neurology, general surgery, vascular surgery and cardiac electrophysiology, as well as lab and radiology services, at its new Daly City Center
- A new 20,400-square-foot surgery center on the existing campus of its Fremont Center
- Primary care services in Contra Costa County
- A renovated medical building in Sunnyvale
MF opened first Berkeley urgent care clinic
East Bay resource center opened to local communities
“AIM made the end of his life so much easier and more positive,” says Nicole Jimenez, daughter of Agustin Rodriguez, a patient in Sutter’s advanced illness management program.
Patients with chronic illness benefit from home care
When Agustin Rodriguez entered the emergency room at Sutter Roseville Medical Center (SRMC) with acute renal failure and congestive heart failure, his family was bewildered by what to do next. Agustin’s was deteriorating rapidly. When he was referred to Sutter’s Advanced Illness Management® (AIM) program, Agustin’s primary care clinician was able to manage his care at home while providing a deep sense of comfort to him and the entire family—right up until his death from a cardiac episode. AIM closes the gap between the hospital setting, the community physician’s office and home for people living with advanced, chronic illnesses. AIM teams work with patients to develop a thorough understanding of their health history, the treatments and medications they’re receiving and their current conditions, as well as in-home visits and over-the-phone support as needed.
90 days after enrollment in AIM:
58% reduction in hospitalizations
72% reduction of days spent in the ICU
19% reduction in emergency room visits
Patients can now see their doctor sooner
To ensure patients can see a primary care doctor within three days of requesting an appointment, Sutter Health’s Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) launched an initiative called Patient Access. PAMF began providing primary care departments with weekly dashboards containing access data all the way down to the individual physician level. Next, departments were asked to determine and rank the causes for their access challenges, set performance standards, and create and implement solutions. Thanks to Patient Access, about 70 to 90 percent of primary care departments (depending on the department and location) are meeting the three-day access goal—up from about 30 percent when the program started.
My Health Online now en espanol
Key portions of My Health Online—Sutter’s secure online patient portal—and valuable health information and instructions are now available in Spanish. This allows our patients and providers to communicate with each other more effectively and overcome language barriers. Through My Health Online (the patient-facing portion of Sutter’s electronic health record), patients have online and mobile access to their personal health record and an expanding number of online services. More than 1.2 million adult patients—or about 65 percent of Sutter’s adult population—connect to Sutter Health through My Health Online, exceeding the national average of less than 30 percent, according to a national study conducted by the California Health Care Foundation.
My Health Online in 2015