St. Joseph Hoag Health’s latest building block for the integrated regional care delivery it aims to establish throughout Orange County is the cornerstone of the Irvine Company’s newest idea to bolster the amenities at a couple of its bigger apartment complexes.
The Irvine-based healthcare network last week opened the St. Joseph Hoag Health Wellness Corner, which will offer clinic-like services to the 5,000 or so residents of The Village and The Park. Both of the Newport Beach-based developer and landlord’s complexes are in the Irvine Spectrum, off the San Diego (405) Freeway and Irvine Center Drive.
Services at Wellness Corner, which will be available to both complexes from roughly 2,000 square feet of space at 57 Prism, include: physical examinations; treatment of minor illnesses; telehealth, where a patient connects with a doctor through technology; sports medicine and travel medicine; and aesthetic services such as Botox injections.
Programs geared toward promoting healthy lifestyles will range from yoga and personalized weight control and fitness regimens, nutrition coaching and menu planning.
St. Joseph Health has also taken over management of the fitness center at The Village, where it will add programs such as aquatics and athletic training.
St. Joseph Hoag and the Irvine Co. will consider adding more wellness centers, with the Village-Park effort serving as a prototype of sorts, according to Marisa Hanke, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of strategic services for Irvine Company Apartment Communities, a division of the developer.
“We are very disciplined around research and evaluating metrics around any new initiative, and I think we know going into it there won’t be a one-size-fits-all type of model,” Hanke said.
Irvine Company is “flexible in how we know that we’ll have to adapt to what our customers’ needs are” for other health and wellness center locations, she said.
The first Wellness Corner is near several large employers, including CoreLogic Inc., which provides property data analytics and research; Smile Brands Inc., a dental business service provider; and accounting and consulting firm KPMG. The nearby apartment complexes—with rents that range from $3,000 and up—are home to significant numbers of residents who work in the immediate area.
They also have a sizable population of seasonal residents from overseas.
St. Joseph Hoag has signed another lease for a wellness center at the Irvine Co.’s Jamboree Center office complex in Irvine later this year.
The Wellness Corner concept is “a key element” of St. Joseph Hoag’s focus on population health management, said Annette Walker, executive vice president, strategic services, at Irvine-based St. Joseph Health, one of St. Joseph Hoag’s partners.
Population health management is intended to treat a group of patients—St. Joseph Hoag Health customers, for example, or residents of an apartment complex—by tailoring healthcare delivery to particular needs.
“Several years ago, we came to this realization of really achieving healthy communities is going to require a significant foray into the health and wellness space,” Walker said.
She added that one goal was to get community members to see St. Joseph Hoag Health as a partner.
Tenants’ Desires
Irvine Apartment Communities, meanwhile, has been hearing from tenants about their desire for health-related amenities, Hanke said.
“What we started to hear from our customers was a lot of focus around health and wellness,” she said. “Our interest is really looking at how we can program and bring offerings and services closer to them so that it’s more convenient, thereby helping them achieve their health and wellness goals.”
Irvine Co. and St. Joseph Hoag began talks this year that led to the Wellness Corner, Hanke said.
St. Joseph Health’s Walker said the new integrated care network it has formed with Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian had some experience with worksite health programs but that “residential was really, really interesting,” she said. “When we saw the way Irvine Co. designs its communities and brings the things people need to really actively enjoy their life, we said, ‘Oh, this is a great location.’ ”
St. Joseph Hoag Health began operating last year and was previously known as Covenant Health Network. It is an affiliation between St. Joseph Health and Hoag, which has campuses in Newport Beach and Irvine.
Medical groups and various outpatient and urgent care facilities also are part of the network.
