Improving Care Through Integration PANGUITCH - For healthcare health-care systems that have mastered the fundamentals of integration, the latest step has been tying everything together to improve clinical outcomes for patient care. Intermountain Health Care, a twenty-one hospital system based in Salt Lake City, with which Garfield Memorial Hospital is associated, reclaims the top spot (No. 1) in SMG Marketing Group's list of Top 100 Integrated Healthcare Networks this year, a position held last year by six-hospital Sentara Healthcare, Norfolk, VA. For Intermountain Health Care, the focus for the past several sev-eral years has been on integrating integrat-ing clinical data to make the quality of care within the network net-work more uniform. "We've spent huge amounts of money to build a clinical database," says William Nelson, Intermountain Health Care President and Chief Executive Officer. "We're beginning to see a real improvement improve-ment across the board." Garfield Memorial Hospital Administrator Eric Packer, explained that the clinical databases data-bases allow IHC to gather information infor-mation and develop best practices. prac-tices. The applicable best practices prac-tices being implemented at LDS Hospital are also being implemented imple-mented at Garfield Memorial Hospital. An example would be, someone experiencing chest pain and a possible heart attack. Within the scope of the facility, we perform the same diagnostic tests and treatment as LDS Hospital. Packer stated, "It's a pleasure to be involved with a corporation corpora-tion that is striving to integrate services and improve care. Our clinical outcomes are constantly improving, and we are better able to serve the citizens of the communities we serve."