Trinity Health's Michigan subsidiary has affiliated with the University of Michigan Health System to improve how the systems deliver care and to give uninsured people better access to health care services. The health systems first will concentrate on southeastern Michigan and then expand their efforts to other parts of the state.
Under the affiliation, Trinity Michigan and UMHS will work with their physicians to better coordinate how they provide care. They will improve how they use their existing capacity, align their work and share information and best practices, according to Garry Faja, the regional market executive for Trinity Health's Southeastern Michigan region and president and chief executive of that region's Saint Joseph Mercy Health System.
Much of the affiliation's focus will be on finding better ways to deliver care to the uninsured, to patients with high-risk conditions like congestive heart failure, to children and to cancer patients.
Trinity and UMHS have formed an oversight committee with representation from both systems to prioritize focus areas and to determine how and when to pursue various aspects of the affiliation.
Faja said that while Trinity Michigan has worked with UMHS on small projects in the past, this is the first affiliation of this scope for the two. He said it paves the way for the systems to potentially partner under the accountable care organization model established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. UMHS already is involved in CMS' demonstration program with another partner.
Trinity Michigan includes 14 hospitals and their affiliated outpatient sites and physician groups. It has about 600 employed physicians. The Ann Arbor, Mich.-based UMHS has three hospitals, six specialty centers, 120 clinics and a network of other facilities. It has about 1,625 physicians.
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