Orange-based St. Joseph Health System, which has four local hospitals, said it will work with Blue Shield of California on what’s called an “accountable care organization.”
Accountable care organizations are designed to offer incentives for doctors, hospitals and insurers to work together to cut healthcare costs.
Under the St. Joseph-Blue Shield collaboration, 30,000 Blue Shield HMO members in Orange County will have their healthcare managed through the accountable care organization. The hospital system and the insurer will share clinical and case management information to coordinate healthcare services for members of the HMO.
St. Joseph Hospital-Orange, Fullerton’s St. Jude Medical Center and Mission Hospital—which has campuses in Mission Viejo and Laguna Beach—are part of the accountable care initiative prompted by the federal healthcare reform that passed in 2010. The local initiative includes the St. Joseph Home Health Ministry, three affiliated physician networks and medical groups.
Another local example can be found at Monarch HealthCare, A Medical Group Inc., a large-group medical practice based in Irvine. Monarch last year became part of an accountable care organization pilot project that grew out of healthcare reform.
St. Joseph said its initiative will start on Jan. 1 and continue for a minimum of 12 months.
The goal of the collaboration is to have a “material, sustainable impact on healthcare costs” for members and businesses over time (see related story, page 1).
Ink for “Paperless”
Irvine-based Quality Systems Inc.’s efforts to bring “paperless offices” to doctors and dentists recently got a good review by Investor’s Business Daily.
The newspaper said that Quality, “at the ripe age of 37,” is a senior player in healthcare technology, “but it’s had to stay nimble to take advantage of the gold rush that’s broken out in its field.”
Quality started to prepare several years ago to make electronic health records a bigger part of its business.
The 2009 federal economic stimulus package included some $19 billion to push electronic health records over five years.
Quality looked at its offerings and found that it didn’t have electronic health record software for hospitals.
That led it to buy Sphere Health Systems Inc. of Laguna Hills in 2009 and Austin, Texas-based Opus Healthcare Solutions Inc. in 2010.
Then came a reorganization of Quality’s dominant NextGen subsidiary into units based on doctor, hospital and dental software fields.
“As you start building a larger company, one of the best ways to do it is to take it and break it into smaller pieces, create leadership at the head of those pieces along with resources and support services and let them grow on their own,” Chief Executive Steven Plochocki told IBD.
Nvision’s New Chief
Todd Cooper is the new chief executive of Nvision Laser Eye Centers, a 10-clinic eye surgery chain based in Newport Beach.
Before coming to Nvision, Cooper was a general manager with Melville, N.Y.-based Henry Schein & Co., a $7.8 billion dental healthcare company. He earlier served as a senior vice president of Discus Dental LLC., a Culver City-based dental company that’s now part of the Netherlands’ Royal Philips Electronics N.V.
Discus grew from $60 million to $165 million in sales over five years Cooper was there, according to Nvision.
Cooper’s experience at Discus—which included developing the Zoom and BriteSmile professional teeth-whitening brands—was attractive to Nvision, according to medical director Thomas Tooma.
Tooma is an eye surgeon who started Nvision in September 2010, when he bought 12 TLC Laser Eye Centers in Southern California from New York-based TLC Vision Corp.
IsoTis Renews Lease
Irvine-based medical device maker IsoTis Orthobiologics Inc. has renewed the lease at 2 Goodyear in Irvine.
The lease lasts for five years and is valued at $2.4 million.
KTR Capital Partners, which owns the building, was represented by Trent Walker and Sam Olmstead of Voit Real Estate Services’ Irvine office. IsoTis was represented by Gregg Haly of CB Richard Ellis.
IsoTis makes artificial bone material used in orthopedics. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Plainsboro, N.J.-based Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corp.
IsoTis was created in 2003 when Irvine-based GenSci Orthobiologics Inc. combined with Swiss device maker IsoTis S.A.
Bits and Pieces
The nursing science program at University of California, Irvine, is planning to open a new nurse practitioner master’s degree clinic at the SOS-El Sol Wellness Center in Santa Ana. UCI has a $1.5 million federal grant for the project.
Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center in Fountain Valley was mentioned in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2011-12 best hospitals ranking.
The hospital was recognized for performance in diabetes/endocrinology, ear, nose and throat, gynecology, neurology and neurosurgery and ranked 22nd out of 138 hospitals in Southern California.
Placentia-Linda Hospital said that it’s been designated by Hartford, Conn.’s Aetna Inc. as an “institute of quality orthopedic care facility” for total joint replacement surgeries.
Newport Beach-based Vintage Senior Living said that it spent $1.5 million to upgrade the Recollections memory care unit at its Vintage Senior Living in the Vintage Mission Viejo community.
