Consumer-driven healthcare: How three organizations respond to the demands of patient-centered care

In response to the new healthcare reality of a consumer-driven market, many hospital and systems undertake new initiatives, including partnering with competitors to increase access to services, helping patients transition from primary care practices to medical homes, providing new access points for urgent care and using technology to improve access to healthcare and the overall patient experience.

The presidents and CEOs from Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, Virginia, Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles and Trinity Health in Livonia, Michigan, discussed these new endeavors Tuesday at the American Hospital Association's annual membership meeting in the District of Columbia.

Nancy H. Agee, pictured, who oversees Carilion's $1.7 billion integrated healthcare system that includes seven hospitals, 1,000 physicians and 80 primary care physicians, called the pace of change in the past decade as staggering. For Carilion, the evolution, or what Agee refers to as a revolution, began seven years ago when the hospital system began its transformation to a clinic environment and divided the organization into eight departments, with a physician and non-physician chair overseeing each department.