Allina Consolidates Board Of Directors

MINNEAPOLIS, June 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at its Annual Meeting, the Allina Hospitals & Clinics Board of Directors announced a new Allina Board which consolidates governance across the system. The new governance structure is one board with 20 members who oversee the operations of the Allina system, including Allina's metro hospitals, Abbott Northwestern, Mercy & Unity, and United, and the Allina Medical Clinic. Allina's regional facilities, Buffalo, Cambridge, New Ulm, Owatonna and River Falls will maintain community boards that will function in an advisory capacity only.

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"The new governance structure is essential to the long-term success of Allina," said Michael Dougherty, Allina's chairman of the board. "One mission, one strategy, one focus, one board -- Allina is finally evolving into a system. The Board conducted a 'self-evaluation' based on where Allina is going and what sort of governance structure it would take to get there. What we found was that changes needed to be made."

A little more than one year ago, the Allina Board named Dick Pettingill the new Allina president and chief executive officer. Under his leadership, Allina has developed a new mission and vision and begun to make system changes that clearly put patients first. "Try to imagine a health care system where you, the patient, get to call the shots. You call your doctor in the morning and schedule an appointment for later that day. Upon arrival, you're immediately told, 'the doctor can see you now.' You get your diagnosis, and a treatment is prescribed using the very latest in medical science -- that's the kind of system Allina is striving for," said Pettingill. "We have to make changes in order to deliver on this goal." According to Dougherty and Pettingill, the consolidation of Allina's governance is only one step in the direction of a more patient-centered health care system.

"We are hearing consumers loud and clear and the Allina Board is stepping up," said Dougherty. "We will be taking on wastefulness by minimizing duplication of services, looking at administrative structure, and making capital investments where they make most sense for patient care. One of our goals is to make health care accessibility so easy in Allina that it will be like buying an airline ticket online."

Allina, like many systems that emerged in the late 1980s-early 1990s, inherited rather than built a governance system formed by a series of at least nine hospital mergers and many more clinic acquisitions over the preceding 30 years. The organizational evolution resulted in a decentralized combination of local boards. "Each board was made up of well-intentioned, dedicated, and bright community members who focused on their local hospital," said Pettingill. "The governance structure was not set up to require them to see across the total system, often making it difficult for the local boards to make decisions without negatively impacting other parts of the system. Thus, standardizing processes and implementing best practices became more and more difficult as health care has become more and more complex. This all amounted to unintentional wastefulness and missed opportunities to improve patient care on the whole."

The consolidated board will include a physician practice council as a subcommittee. Pettingill said this is significant. "Physician input will be critical as we change our system to better meet the demands of our patients." Pettingill cited the recent Rand study, which found that, on average people receive only 50 to 60 percent of recommended health care.

"Treatment patients receive from their doctors would be made far more effective by a system that gave less treatment discretion and focused on scientifically proven best practices. For Allina to achieve standardization around best practices, physicians must have more significant engagement in strategy development, technology assessment, capital allocation and assessment of high quality clinical outcomes and patient safety. The Physician Practice Council will play a large role in all those areas," he said. In addition to the Physician Practice Council, last year Pettingill created a Physician Leadership Team, which is an integral part of Allina's executive management.

With regard to community connections, Pettingill said that while Allina has a rich tradition of providing services designed to improve community health, the organization's efforts have been fragmented, largely unevaluated in terms of their impact on community health status, and insufficiently tied to the organization's mission. "Defining and achieving a broader community benefit role requires a proactive and commonly shared strategy that maximizes our limited resources," said Pettingill. "We created the Allina Community Benefit Program as part of our governance restructure to help us more fully realize the Allina mission and vision in demonstrably improving the overall health of the more than 40 communities Allina serves." The Allina Board recently made a very visible and public decision based on the Allina mission when they decided to locate the Allina headquarters in the Phillips Neighborhood in south Minneapolis.

Allina will continue to support strong philanthropic foundations, which are based in its hospitals and specialty services. Increased support will include more efficient, cost saving backroom operations, sharing of best practices and a more coordinated approach to large corporate donors. Funds raised locally will stay local, according to Pettingill who also emphasized that "from a philanthropy standpoint, this change will better allow board members to raise funds to strengthen community support for our local institutions."

Pettingill expects a smooth transition over the course of the next few months as the boards of trustees at Abbott Northwestern, Allina Medical Clinic, Mercy & Unity and United hospitals dissolve. "The transition is expected to be smooth with no disruptions in operations," said Pettingill. He commended the transitioning board members for their dedication and many years of service and encouraged them to seek other opportunities to support their local hospitals and Allina. "We intend to build on the strong foundations these boards have laid and hope they stay involved with Allina and their communities," said Pettingill.

The new Allina Board of Directors include: Michael Dougherty, Chair James Campbell, Vice Chair John Morrison, Vice Chair Rollin Crawford Thomas Crosby Joanne Disch Gary Holmes Robert Hunstad Ron James Patrick Johns Cyndi Lesher Terry Saario Brian Short John Turner Elaine Voss Penny Wheeler, M.D. PPC Chair, to be named Regional board member, to be named Ex Officio: Dick Pettingill, President and CEO

Allina Hospitals & Clinics is a non-profit network of hospitals, clinics and other health care services, providing care throughout Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Allina owns and operates 15 hospitals, 42 clinics, hospice services, pharmacies, and emergency medical transportation services. Allina Hospitals & Clinics can be found online at http://www.allina.com/ .

CONTACT: Kendra Calhoun of Allina Hospitals & Clinics,+1-612-775-9729 office, +1-612-654-8993-pager

Web site: http://www.allina.com/