Chicago-based CommonSpirit is "investing significantly in high-growth markets," such as Arizona and Colorado, to ensure the long-term sustainability of the health system, CFO Dan Morissette said during the company's investor call on Oct. 4.
Last year, Centennial, Colo.-based Centura Health folded into CommonSpirit, which manages 20 hospitals and more than 240 care sites in Colorado, Kansas and Utah that were previously managed by Centura.
The news came shortly after CommonSpirit and Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based AdventHealth said they would end their Centura Health joint venture after 27 years, with each system directly managing their respective care sites in Kansas and Colorado.
"Much of our focus in this market is on transition alignment and ambulatory care sites, as well as future inpatient growth to meet the rapidly expanding demand," Mr. Morissette said. "We also announced a partnership with Kaiser in this market, which is an important new collaboration for us.Intentional capital deployment means taking a system-level approach to reviewing and assessing all needs across CommonSpirit."
The health system is also diversifying its service line in these high-growth markets. Areas of focus include behavioral health, cancer care and outpatient care.
"We are triaging and prioritizing to align our capital with strategic priorities. In many markets, this means focusing on ambulatory strategies, while selectively adding inpatient capacity in high-growth markets like Arizona and Colorado," Mr. Morissette said.
CommonSpirit has also expanded its partnership with Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente in Colorado. A new long-term agreement will have both organizations working from a fully integrated Epic EHR system.
Under the agreement, Kaiser employees and physicians will be integrated into three CommonSpirit hospitals — St. Anthony Hospital and OrthoColorado Hospital in Lakewood and St. Anthony North Hospital in Westminster — to provide inpatient and emergency services to Kaiser members.
"CommonSpirit Health and Kaiser Permanente are building a comprehensive, long-term relationship that will reshape how and where healing can happen," Andrew Gaasch, president of CommonSpirit's Mountain region, said. "We know healing close to home is important to every patient, and through this collaboration, we look forward to welcoming Kaiser Permanente members and ensuring every patient experiences outstanding care and service when they need us most."
CommonSpirit is also transitioning to system-led initiatives to leverage its size and scale, including the April launch of its digital consumer experience to meet patients' evolving expectations around care access,
The reimagined digital experience includes a single content engine, one platform, and the first systemwide "find a doctor" and "find a location" service, offering an intuitive way to compare providers and book appointments.
CEO Wright Lassiter III said the initiative "will foster additional consumer relationships and greater loyalty."
In June, CommonSpirit launched enhanced online scheduling for its employed physicians and advanced practice providers in California, Arizona and Nevada. The health system has seen a nearly 120% increase in appointments since the launch, with the next phase integrating all market-based sites onto the platform.
"We have strong momentum, but we must keep working to achieve further improvement. Our operating model changes have streamlined the organization, and the market-based focus is leading to more nuanced investments and coordinated care delivery," Mr. Morissette said. "While our operating results are not yet where we need them to be, we have a broad range of revenue and cost initiatives to drive further improvement. Although we can't predict the investment markets, our investment program generated strong cash flow to support the organization and is poised to deliver strong long-term risk-adjusted returns."