As a tribally-owned health care system serving Alaska Natives and American Indians, the Southcentral Foundation (SCF) at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage is designed from the ground up by its customer-owners.
This means that customer-owners — a term preferred over “patients” — drive everything from the design of the physical space to the integration of traditional healing and tribal doctors into the array of resources.
It means that the values a customer-owner identifies are at the heart of every discussion and care plan, and are used to help that individual and family set health-related goals. “In Native cultures, grandparents are responsible for passing on important traditions to their grandchildren,” says Douglas Eby, MD, MPH, Vice President of Medical Services. “So with an individual who is diabetic, for example, we would try not to say, ‘You need to lose weight and stop smoking.’ We might say, ‘If you are going to teach your grandchild to fish, you will need to feel the bottom of the river with your feet, and controlling your diabetes will keep your feet healthy.’”
SCF’s core philosophy reflects this emphasis on partnership. “Dispensing the right pills and doing the right procedures supports our primary product, which is building trust over time as we walk in partnership on their health journey,” says Eby.
Data show that this approach does more than satisfy patients. “Our hospital days are down 40 percent over the past seven years, and we have an eight-year track record of reducing our per capita costs,” says Eby.
06/01/2008
