Southcentral Foundation - 24th annual quest for excellence

[ Music and Effects ] Nuka is a native Alaska name given to strong, beautiful living things, like polar bears, and to giant structures like Alaska's great mountains. [Gottlieb] It seemed like a natural name that we could give our health- care system because it means strength, it means beauty, it means living things, strong and loving relationships. Southcentral Foundation's Nuka System of healthcare delivery is about relationships-- between those being served and those providing the service. SCF's organizational strategies and processes, its medical, behavioral, dental, and traditional practices, work with the Native Community to achieve a single, overarching reality. [Gottlieb] It's truly to live out our physical, mental, emotional, wellness at its ultimate level. What we see as a vision for our people is to be a renowned people of health. So people who not only know and have the knowledge of what it means to be healthy but to daily, freely administer and exercise it and so, in freedom. And, it's not only seen in adults but it's seen in our children and our children's children. SCF's Nuka system is owned, managed, directed, designed, and driven by Alaska Native people called "customer -owners". It serves a population of 60,000 Alaska Native and American Indian people spread over 126,000 square miles-- an area the size of Colorado. Of those 60,000, 10,000 live in 55 villages so remote they can only be reached by plane or boat. [Gottlieb] We've utilized telemedicine through our computerized services. Our providers can see visually and provide services through community health aids and all the natural helpers that are in the villages, one on one, face to face, through our telemedicine. In rural villages or urban Anchorage, SCF's approach to healthcare delivery rests firmly on 13 operational principles which provide guidance from customer-owners when improving systems and/or services. Taken together, they define how SCF functions and clearly state that relationships are the foundation upon which the organization is built. In 2010, Southcentral's ability to live up to these principles was recognized in by the National Committee on Quality Assurance. For creating a strong primary care system marked by engaging customer-owners and offering a broad range of preventive service and treatment, SCF was awarded the highest level of Patient Centered Medical Home. A concept created in 1967, Patient Centered Medical Home is an approach to comprehensive primary care for people of all ages that facilitates partnerships between patients, their doctors, and, when appropriate, the patient's family. In practical terms, SCF's achievements translate into improvements in many areas. Same day access to care has led to a halving of costly emergency room and urgent care visits, a drop of about 65 percent in specialty care, a decrease in primary care visits by 20 percent, and a decrease in hospital visits by 53 percent. Such results-- and many others-- speak to SCF's success in promoting the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness of its customers-- who are also its owners. [Gottlieb] So, we own and manage our own health care. We are the customers of our health care system. Customers being in charge, customers having a say in their health care delivery, customers having a relationship with their providers. Southcentral Foundation is more than a hospital, a primary care service. It's a system driven by the customer-owners based on relationships.