ALTRU-ISTIC AFFILIATION: Altru, Mayo partnership underscores their similarities
Altru to be first health care organization in nation to have non-ownership affiliation with Mayo ClinicThe new affiliation agreement is just the most recent step in a long-standing relationship between the two groups, who they say have much in common.
- Altru and Mayo's formal announcement
- Altru
After meeting with reporters at the Alerus Center last week to champion their new affiliation agreement, executives from the Mayo Clinic and Altru Health System posed for a series of group photos taken by staffers.
Representatives from both organizations beamed throughout the announcement at Altru’s annual meeting, the ensuing news conference and photo op.
The new affiliation agreement is just the most recent step in a long-standing relationship between the two groups, who they say have much in common.
“We’ve had a very trusted long-term relationship,” said David Herman, a member of the Mayo Clinic’s board of governors. “We have seen the care that they provide. We have had good physician-to-physician relationships and good institution-to-institution relationships. When you pull organizations together, culture trumps everything. The culture of the Mayo Clinic and the culture of Altru have a very synergistic relationship.”
Altru will become the first health care organization in the nation to have a non-ownership affiliation with the Mayo Clinic, offering local patients increased access to more specialized care closer to home. Mayo officials say Altru will be the first “alpha site” in what it eventually envisions as a national network of cooperating health care facilities.
The Mayo name will be incorporated into Altru’s official branding. More naming details are expected to be released later this year.
But Altru, a community-owned integrated health care system, will remain locally owned and operated and will not be acquired or controlled by the Mayo Clinic.
“We wanted to do what was best for our patients,” said Altru President Casey Ryan, who did his internal medical residency at the Mayo Clinic. “Since the majority of our patients want to go to the Mayo Clinic if they can’t be managed in Grand Forks, we were interested in pursuing a non-ownership relationship. It just so happens that both parties were thinking about the same thing at the same time and it managed to work.”
Retaining local control
Ryan said Altru has had discussions with both Sanford Health and Essentia Health about potential partnerships, but that giving up local ownership has never been an option.
“We never have gone away from local ownership,” Ryan said. “That was never on the table. Any discussions we ever had with Essentia or with Sanford never got to that level because we always said, ‘We’re not interested in being owned.’ The minute you do that, the decision making leaves your community and it’s different.”
Unlike Fargo’s MeritCare becoming part of Sanford and Innovis joining Essentia, Altru’s new affiliation with Mayo represents a different, less common approach to health care integration that does not include consolidation.
“There is a distinction between consolidation and clinical integration,” Mayo’s Herman said. “Consolidation is pulling things together to make sure the billing systems, the back office and all that stuff works together. Clinical integration is the sharing of information around the care of the patient. You do not have to have a consolidated ownership model to be able to do that. Mayo Clinic has collaborated with referring physicians in other medical sites for over 100 years. This just allows us to take the capabilities and the tools of the 21st Century to be able to do it in a more organized and strategic manner.”
Stephen Parente, director of the University of Minnesota’s Medical Industry Leadership Institute, said the partnership sounds intriguing.
“It makes a lot of sense,” Parente said. “One of the things that has been encouraged in health care reform is the accountable health care model. You can do it through acquisition or you can do it this way.”
How it will work
Physicians at Altru will be able to consult with Mayo Clinic experts by phone, video conferencing or other electronic means. Altru physicians may also visit Rochester to meet with Mayo specialists and visiting Mayo doctors will offer specialty clinics in Grand Forks.
Altru will still be in charge of treating its own patients, but Altru physicians will soon have access to treatment recommendations from Mayo Clinic staff as well as disease-based management protocols, clinical care guidelines and research.
Patients at Altru will not be billed for any of the new resources. Altru and Mayo will each contribute an undisclosed sum to help build the technological infrastructure to make the sharing of resources and expertise possible.
Altru CEO Dave Molmen said the building of that infrastructure is expected to take a few months to be added to existing Altru facilities such as patient rooms. “Our hope is that it’s really seamless,” Molmen said.
The new collaboration may allow local patients to receive more of their medical care, tests and other services at Altru. Patients would only go to the Mayo Clinic when they need specialized care not offered in Grand Forks.
“We’ve always had a strong relationship with the Mayo Clinic,” Altru’s Ryan said. “Most of our patients have asked to go to the Mayo Clinic when their care can’t be managed in Grand Forks. But there are times when people want to go to Fargo or Minneapolis or somewhere else, depending upon how specific or unique their case might be. This is a great opportunity for our patients, but it’s not an exclusive arrangement with Mayo.”
Altru physicians in need of the opinion of a specialist in a particular field could contact an expert at Mayo for their opinion and would also have access to other Mayo resources. Physicians could contact a specialist at Mayo, let them know the patient’s symptoms, what treatment has been given and ask what they should try next.
“With that information we would make suggestions for further care (in Grand Forks),” Herman said. “If the care had been taken as far as it possibly could there, we would make suggestions for care in Rochester, and then facilitate that transition from Altru to the Mayo Clinic.”
Altru refers about 600 patients to the Mayo Clinic for treatment each year. Officials with both health care systems said they don’t know exactly how the new affiliation agreement will impact the number of patients leaving Grand Forks to receive medical care at Mayo.
“Right now, roughly 16 percent of the medical spending done by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota members is paid to a hospital, clinic or doctor outside of the state,” Mark Lyman, public relations manager of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota wrote in a prepared statement. “As mentioned by Altru administrators, this affiliation would allow their staff to better serve patients locally. And better health care in North Dakota, for North Dakotans, is a goal we all have.”
Higher profile
Partnering with the world’s most recognizable name in health care figures to not only help improve the quality of care at Altru, but also better the health care system’s image and marketability.
Ryan said the collaboration also has the potential to help Altru in the recruiting of physicians and other employees drawn by the affiliation with Mayo.
The partnership also allows Altru to get in on the ground floor of a new Mayo affiliate program and play a role in helping to shape a new health care delivery model.
“We are really looking forward to working closely with Altru and the members of the community,” Mayo’s Herman said. “We want to find out, ‘How can we design the new care models? How can we test those models? And how can we implement the care models that will make medicine better, not just for Mayo Clinic, not just for the people of North Dakota and the patients of Altru, but across the United States?’ ”
Schuster reports on business. Reach Schuster at (701) 780-1107; (800) 477-6572, ext. 107; or send email to rschuster@gfherald.com. Follow Schuster on Twitter at @RyanSchuster.
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