Hospital story: Making of an IDN (Integrated Delivery Network) is to create a patient referral platform.

Hospital story: Making of an IDN (Integrated Delivery Network) is to create a patient referral platform.

1. Shortage of patients:

UChicago Medicine Ingalls Memorial Hospital faced significant financial challenges due to demographic shifts in its service area, due to unfavorable payer mix, with a high percentage of government payers in 1970. 

2. Developed primary care clinics:

Ingalls’ developed a strategy to place primary care services close to targeted populations, to create a patient referral platform for higher levels of care. Hence, Ingalls opened a primary care clinic, i.e. Family Care Center (FCC), in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, eight miles west of the main hospital in 1977. The FCC’s providers saw more than 30 patients on the first day, and patient volumes took off. 

3. Specialists in primary care: The FCC clinic’s expanding primary care base drove growth in specialist referrals, including general surgery, otolaryngology, obstetrics/gynecology and orthopedic surgery in 1980. 

4. More FCC & Ambulatory Surgery Care (ASC) added: 

The FCC then expanded to include a freestanding ASC. Based on the original FCC’s success, Ingalls began to open additional FCCs in nearby communities.

5. Diagnostics & Imaging centers: 

During 1990s, Ingalls invested in select ancillary services, including imaging labs, cardiac testing, an infusion center and radiation oncology services. 

Hospitals and health systems that are still in the incipient stages of developing an IDN can take a lesson from the iterative way Ingalls embarked on its strategy in phases.

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