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hen it comes to your health and your health care, living in Utah is just |
what the doctor ordered, and exactly what your accountant would prescribe.
- Utah ranks as the sixth healthiest state in the nation by the United Health Foundation.
- The same study revealed that Utah has the nation’s lowest smoking rates.
- Likewise, Utah has the nation’s lowest rate of deaths caused by cancer.
- Companies that relocate to Utah report an increase in productivity due to work ethic and good health of the populace.
- Utah’s overall health care is rated as “strong” in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services 2006 National Healthcare Quality Report.
- Utah’s population enjoys the nation’s fourth-longest life expectancy.
- At 12.1 percent, Utah has the tenth lowest health care expenditures as a percentage of gross state product, a figure which is 1.2 points below the national average according Statehealthfacts.org from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
- Average premium per covered individual in Utah was the 7th-lowest in the nation. (Source: Families USA/Lewin study, 2004.)
- Among western U.S. states, Utah ranks the lowest percentage of emergency department admissions for uninsured hospitalized patients.
And because of the way medical advancements and computer software technology intersect in Utah, the State is a hotbed in the development of medical products and software enhancements such as medical procedure analysis and electronic insurance claims.
Hospitals
Utah has 22 freestanding surgical centers and 44 hospitals in 22 counties offering quality care. Utah hospitals report more than 4.5 million outpatient visits and more than 214,000 inpatient admissions annually. Additionally, since 2004 Utah hospitals have delivered 50,000 or more births annually.
Dating back to 1912, the University of Utah first started training doctors. University Health Care is the Intermountain West’s only academic health care system, combining excellence in patient care, medical research, and teaching to provide pioneering medicine in a caring and personal setting. University Health Care has more than 850 board-certified physicians spread across its centers and 10 Wasatch Front clinics. For 13 years running, University Hospital has been ranked among US News & World Report’s Best Hospitals. In addition, University Health Care’s academic partners at the University of Utah School of Medicine and Colleges of Nursing, Pharmacy, and Health comprise the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, internationally regarded for its teaching institutions and research in genetics, cancer, medical drugs, and numerous other areas of medicine.
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Huntsman Cancer Institute |
In just 12 years the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah has rocketed to respectability as one of the premier cancer centers in America. HCI is one of University Health Care’s Centers of Excellence and the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center in the Intermountain West. HCI is also part of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. With three floors of laboratories, HCI researchers investigate the causes of cancer and new treatments with a particular focus on and expertise in the genetics of cancer. The first floor houses the Huntsman Cancer Learning Center, where patients, family members, and the general public go for the most current information about cancer care, prevention, and treatments—free of charge. HCI’s Family Cancer Assessment Clinic advises people about their individual risk, genetic testing options, and personalized screening recommendations. Adjacent to the institute building is the 50-bed $100 million Huntsman Cancer Hospital—the only cancer-specialty hospital in the Intermountain West. Mary C. Beckerle, HCI’s executive director, was honored in 2007 with the Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence, the University of Utah’s most prestigious award. Her research is focused on how cells move and stick together, both important to understanding how cancer spreads throughout the body.
Intermountain Healthcare is a locally owned system of non-profit hospitals and clinics with a nationwide reputation for efficiency, quality and technological savvy. A Dartmouth Medical School study found that if the entire nation provided Medicare the way Intermountain Healthcare provides medical care in the Salt Lake City area, then Medicare spending could be reduced by a third while maintaining treatment quality. In a yearly study published in Modern Healthcare Intermountain Healthcare has been ranked number one or two in among the nation’s 550 integrated health systems in eight of the nine years since the study began. In seven of the last eight years Hospitals & Health Networks, the journal of the American Hospital Association, has named Intermountain Healthcare as one of the nations most technological adept health systems.
Intermountain Healthcare operates 21 hospitals, 142 clinics and physician offices, 19 urgent care facilities, a hospice program, and a fleet of aircraft including four LifeFlight helicopters and three fixed-wing aircraft. Their hospitals include: Primary Children’s Medical Center, LDS Hospital, McKay Dee Hospital, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center, and Dixie Regional Medical Center. In 2006, Intermountain provided more than $97 million worth of charitable care during visits to 202,196 patients otherwise unable to pay.
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Primary Children’s Medical Center |
The company is currently building the state-of-the-art Intermountain Medical Center in Murray. The campus will include five specialty hospitals… a 15-story tertiary inpatient critical care hospital and trauma center, a heart and lung center, a women’s and newborn center, an outpatient hospital, and a cancer treatment hospital… as well as a medical office building. The cancer treatment hospital is already in operation as is the Intermountain Healthcare’s centralized lab. Construction on the remainder of the campus is schedule for completion in 2007.
LDS Hospital, Intermountain Healthcare’s first facility, is consistently ranked among US News & World Report’s Best Hospitals, along with being ranked Utah’s Best Healthcare Facility by the annual “Best in the State in 2006” awards. In addition, the downtown Salt Lake City-based LDS Hospital, along with three other IHC facilities earned certification as Utah’s first “Magnet” hospital, the American Nursing Association’s highest designation for nursing programs in the United States. Just 3 percent of the nation’s 6,000 have been so honored. LDS Hospital is also well-known for leading-edge programs, like their new genealogy tool providing hope for exciting new discoveries in fighting against the #1 killer—heart disease, along with their study of fetal heart conditions within pregnant mothers.
Started as a ward of LDS Hospital in 1911, Intermountain Healthcare’s Primary Children’s |
Medical Center moved to its own facility in 1922. Now on the campus of the University of Utah since 1990, Primary has been recognized as one of the top 10 children’s hospitals in the nation. Primary has 232 beds, 40 pediatric specialty clinics, more than 60 medical specialties and subspecialties, including heart, bone marrow, and liver transplants; pediatric and newborn intensive care; cardiovascular surgery; neurosurgery; and hematology/oncology. It is the only American College of Surgeons-verified Level 1 Trauma Center for Children in its five-state service area (Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and Montana). Critically ill children from throughout the Intermountain region are airlifted to the hospital for treatment.
Utah’s first hospital, now in its 135th year, St. Mark’s Hospital was recently named among the top 5 percent of hospitals for overall clinical excellence according to HealthGrades. This is merely the latest in a long string of national and local recognitions, including being ranked in the top 10 percent of hospitals nationally for joint replacement surgery, pulmonary care, critical care and general surgery, being named both a 100 Top Cardiovascular Hospital and a 100 Top Overall Hospital by Solucient, one of America’s Top Hospitals by Money Magazine, as well as achieving the status of “Most Preferred Hospital” in Salt Lake County by Valley Research. St. Mark’s Hospital is part of the MountainStar family of hospitals.
More than 125 years ago, The Sisters of the Holy Cross founded a unique hospital in Salt Lake City. Administered by the sisters until 1994, and built on a legacy of dedication and care, Salt Lake Regional Medical Center, now owned by Iasis Healthcare is one of the most trusted and respected medical facilities in Utah. Conveniently located between the City Center and the University of Utah, Salt Lake Regional Medical Center is a first-class clinical facility offering a wide range of patient-centered services.
Opened by Intermountain Healthcare in 2002 and built at a cost of $190 million, McKay-Dee Hospital Center in Ogden is a level II trauma center serving northern Utah and portions of Wyoming and Idaho. Its programs and services in heart, cancer treatment and newborn intensive care are nationally recognized. Other centers of excellence include emergency and trauma care, critical care, women and children’s services, behavioral medicine, and community health information center.
Part of a network of 22 pediatric hospitals in North America, Shriners Hospital for Children Intermountain provides specialty orthopedic care and rehabilitation to children under 18 years of age with diseases and disorders of the bones, muscles, and joints, as well as burns, spinal cord injuries, and cleft lip and palate. All care provided at Shriners Hospital is at no cost to patient or family. Eligibility for care is not based on need or relationship to a Shriner. Since 1925, the Intermountain facility has cared for more than 25,000 patients from Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Nevada, and Sonora and Chihuahua, Mexico.
Regence Caring Foundation for Children, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield of Utah, has provided free health or dental benefits to more than 20,000 uninsured Utah and Idaho children since 1991.
Serving Utah County and central and southern Utah, Utah Valley Regional Medical Center is a 330-bed full-service tertiary and acute care referral center. Another of Intermountain Healthcare’s hospitals, offers several programs of excellence including the Utah Valley heart center, the newborn ICU and cancer services. Other quality services include emergency and trauma services, critical care, women’s and children’s services, behavioral health, and the Utah Valley rehabilitation center.
Set on two campuses, the new Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George serves southern Utah, Nevada, and northern Arizona. The 420,000 square-foot hospital hosts 132 acute patient beds and emergency department. The DRMC 400 East campus houses an acute rehabilitation center, a newborn intensive care unit, a fully-accredited cancer care unit, a NICU, wound clinic, diabetes clinic, and a hyperbaric medicine clinic.
Utah’s urban areas especially offer an increasing number of express care clinics typically housed in retail stores and staffed by nurse practitioners and physicians assistants, as well as urgent care clinics for adults and children, and occupational medicine clinics to serve the needs in businesses and neighborhoods.
Commercial HMO’s
The Utah Department of Health Performance Report of 2006 ranks the State’s commercial HMOs on a Federally-developed range of measures collectively called HEDIS as well as customer satisfaction. In terms of plans, Altius Health Plans ranked first with 69 percent satisfaction followed by SelectHealth 62 percent, and HealthWise with 58 percent satisfaction. In rating the health care received, United Health Care finished first with 89 percent satisfaction, Altius second with 88 percent, and HealthWise third with 87 percent. In ratings of personal physicians, United finished with 90 percent satisfaction, Cigna recorded 88 percent, and SelectHealth finished with 87 percent.
A division of Bethesda, Maryland-based Fortune 500 company Coventry Health Care, Altius Health Plans insures groups, individuals and families.
SelectHealth, formerly IHC Health Plans, Inc., is an integrated subsidiary of Intermountain Healthcare. The insurer has been nationally recognized for providing its members with quality health care at an affordable cost, while maintaining the highest level of member services.
CIGNA Group Insurance and Healthcare provides Utahns with a nationwide network of disability, life and accident products that focus on low cost and consistent delivery of the service basics. Cigna’s healthcare products are offered to employees and association members through their employers, associations, and other affinity groups.
Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield is a not-for-profit organization and the largest affiliation of health care plans in the Pacific Northwest/Mountain region. Blue Cross Blue Shield has been providing members with health, dental, vision, life insurance benefits, and administrative services in Utah since 1942. Collectively, Regence’s four plans serve nearly 3 million members with more than $6.5 billion in annual premiums and reserves of more than $1.1 billion.
Since their inception in 1977, United Healthcare has worked to help make coverage more accessible for all Americans, and to help individuals take a more active role in their own health and well-being. United Healthcare, along with sister company Uniprise, Inc., serves more than 18 million individual customers, providing access to more than 470,000 physicians and 4,500 hospitals in Utah across the 49 states and in four international markets.
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University Hospital’s AirMed Helicopter |
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