Rounds: Will Health Systems Do Anything About Health?

The health systems that may be the true test cases may be physician-led, integrated systems with experience at capitation, patient-centered medical homes, and multispecialty practice. I moderated a Healthleaders Roundtable a couple of years back and still recall what Dean Health CEO Craig Samitt, MD, said about how his Madison, WI-based health system views growth.

"The ideal growth scenario for us is five years from now [is] we have triple the number of patients, each generating half the number of prior services that they generated previously," Samitt said.

The healthcare organization that is the furthest along in the "health" continuum to date may well be Kaiser Permanente, with nine million members, 37 hospitals, and more than 16,000 physicians. It has the structural advantages of being integrated with the health plan. And its scale affords certain other tools, such as an integrated electronic health record system that combines provider tools with member tools for managing health and communicating with the care team.

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