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Show Garfield Memorial Notes 20 Years Under IHC Helm PANGUITCH One morning in 1975, a group of people representing repre-senting various parts of the Intcrmounlain community sat down to discuss the formation of a new charitable health care organization. The nucleus of this organization would be the 15 hospitals owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Having determined deter-mined hospitals were no longer necessary to its mission, the church was donating its hospitals to the public. The old Garfield Memorial Hospital was one of these faciliu'es. A new nonprofit organization, named Intermountain Health Care (IHC), was formed to operate these hospitals on behalf of the community. commu-nity. To provide local control and direction for the young health care system, community leaders were asked to govern the organization as unpaid volunteer trustees. Now, after admitting 2.1 million mil-lion inpatients, delivering nearly 450,000 babies, performing 1.4 million surgeries, and treating 4.8 million patients in its emergency centers, IHC is noting its twentieth anniversary this year. Garfield Memorial Hospital is an IHC facility. Today, IHC is a charitable, community-owned, nonprofit health care organization based in Salt Lake City that serves the health needs of Utah, Idaho and Wyoming residents. resi-dents. The IHC system has grown along with the Intermountain region re-gion to now include health insurance insur-ance plans, 23 hospitals, clinics, and affiliated physicians. IHC is directed di-rected by more than 300 unpaid volunteer trustees on a central board and hospital and foundation boards. "IHC's mission has never changed," said Scott S. Parker, IHC president and chief execuuve officer. "This mission is to provide the highest quality care at the lowest possible cost, while providing care to those with a medical need, regardless re-gardless of ability to pay " In meeting this mission, IHC has provided $130 million of charitable chari-table care in about 500,000 cases at its hospitals and clinics over the past 20 years. IHC's total benefit to the community, including such services as free health screenings, community education, research, and medical training exceeds one billion dollars since 1975. Access to health care has been improved with the addition of clinics clin-ics in a variety of locations. Many clinics have been constructed in rural ru-ral areas, and a number of clinics called IHC Health Centers have opened at convenient locations along the Wasatch Front. Many physicians at these Health Centers are part of IHC's newly-formed Physician Division. Half of IHC's 23 hospitals are located in rural communities. Some of these hospitals struggle to break even, but IHC keeps them open to serve the community. In 1994, IHC provided more than one million dollars in subsidies for rural health care services. In many rural communities, IHC hospitals are major employers and important tools in attracting new industry. With 18,000 employees, IHC is one of the largest employers in the Intermountain West and greatly benefits the economy of the region. Last year, IHC directly put $519 million into the area economy through wages paid to employees. An economic study found IHC's activities ac-tivities indirectly create another 4,200 full time jobs in the region and annually generate $37 million in Utah income and sales taxes. |