Northwestern Memorial Healthcare

Programs: Northwestern memorial foundation is organized and shall be operated exclusively for charitable, scientific or educational purposes, to promote and support, directly or indirectly, by donation, loan or otherwise, the interests and purposes of northwestern memorial hospital, northwesten lake forest hospital, and in furtherance of these purposes, the corporation may: (a) raise funds from the public and from all other sources available, receive and maintain such funds and expend principal and income there from; (b) manage and allocate resources through grants and awards, with funding priorities to include but not be limited to: increasing access to health care for community residents, enhancing the quality of health care services, medical technology, medical education, medical research programs, health related building campaigns, endowments, and discretionary funds; (c) own, lease or otherwise deal with all property, real and personal, to be used in furtherance of these purposes; (d) contract with other organizations, for-profit and not-for-profit, with individuals, and with governmental agencies in furtherance of these purposes

northwestern memorial healthcare (nmhc) is the not-for-profit corporate parent of northwestern memorial hospital (nmh), northwestern lake forest hospital (nlfh) and northwestern memorial foundation (nmf). Collectively, these organizations and their subsidiaries are referred to in this document as northwestern memorial. Nmh is a not-for-profit corporation and is part of an academic medical center in downtown chicago, illinois that provides a full range of adult inpatient and outpatient services in an educational and research environment. The main patient care sites of nmh are the feinberg and galter pavilions, prentice women's hospital, olson pavilion and stone institute of psychiatry. Nlfh is a not-for-profit corporation that provides patient care services at its main hospital in lake forest, illinois and at many locations across lake county and northern cook county, with a large outpatient campus in grayslake. Nmf is a not-for-profit organization that provides fundraising and grantmaking in support of the mission and strategic goals of nmh and nlfh. Northwestern memorial prepares an annual nonprofit hospital community benefits plan report. That report is filed with the illinois attorney general's office and is available on request. A summary version is also available on the nmh. Org website. The following is the "executive summary and background" section from the report. With a mission-driven commitment to providing quality medical care, regardless of the ability to pay, northwestern memorial has, in recent years, significantly broadened its efforts to improve the health of the most medically underserved members of its community by: a. Providing approximately $276. 7 million in community benefit in fiscal year 2010 including charity care, other unreimbursed care, research, education and other community benefit. B. More than doubling the amount of charity care provided over the last five years, resulting in approximately $44 million in hospital services provided to those who could not afford to pay in fiscal year 2010. C. Providing more than $71. 5 million in funding for research and medical education in fiscal year 2010 including performing more than 2,100 clinical research studies and training more than 900 medical students, residents and fellows. D. Funding and implementing long-term community-based programs to help individuals better manage conditions such as diabetes and breast health. E. Supporting chicago's safety net at every level by providing assistance to community-based hospitals, federally qualified health centers and free clinics; through the sharing of clinical information, information technology systems; funding for targeted programs; and volunteer efforts. F. Participating in community-based public health initiatives aimed at improving nutrition, promoting exercise and reducing violence. For 146 years, nmh and its predecessor institutions, passavant and wesley memorial hospitals, have served the people of chicago. The commitment to provide healthcare, regardless of the ability to pay, reaches back to the founding principles of passavant and wesley and continues to be integral to our patients first mission. Importantly, it provides the foundation for our mission-driven commitment to improve the health of the communities we serve. This commitment is advanced by focusing on enhancing patient access, safety and quality through hospital-based care and services and through partnerships with community health centers that date back more than 50 years. As the primary teaching hospital for northwestern university feinberg school of medicine (feinberg), the more than 1,600 physicians on the medical staff at nmh carry faculty appointments at feinberg and represent virtually every medical specialty. Through northwestern medicine(tm), northwestern memorial shares a vision with feinberg to work to positively impact the future of healthcare through exceptional patient care, medical education and breakthrough scientific research that can lead to improved treatments and cures. In fiscal year 2010, northwestern memorial increased access to specialty medical care, clinical trials and a host of other healthcare services for patients in lake and cook counties and surrounding regions through its affiliation with lake forest hospital, now known as northwestern lake forest hospital. From its founding 112 years ago as the alice home hospital on the campus of lake forest college, nlfh has upheld its promise to provide lake county residents convenient access to the highest quality, most advanced health care services available. Nlfh has continually expanded its health care services to respond to the growing needs of its community. Nlfh shares northwestern memorial's commitment to provide care for those unable to pay, consistently providing the highest percentage of charity care among lake county hospitals. The alignment of clinical care and administrative processes of northwestern memorial toward the goal of creating an integrated academic healthcare delivery system is well underway. Northwestern memorial's outreach services and financial assistance programs are built on the foundation of a patients first mission and continue to expand to serve the most vulnerable in our community. The unreimbursed cost of charity care for nmh alone has more than doubled from $16. 1 million in fiscal year 2005, the first year of the preparation of this report, to $38. 2 million in fiscal year 2010. With the $5. 8 million in charity care provided by nlfh during the seven months of its affiliation with nmhc, northwestern memorial provided a total of $44. 0 million in charity care in fiscal year 2010. In total, northwestern memorial contributed $276. 7 million to charity care, unreimbursed care, research and education and other community benefit programs, or approximately 18. 8 percent of net patient service revenue in fiscal year 2010. Ahead of some of the area's safety-net hospitals, nmh is the sixth largest provider of medicaid services among acute care hospitals in illinois when measured by total medicaid patient admissions and the ninth largest provider when measured by total medicaid patient days. (source: illinois department of healthcare and family services for the fiscal year ended june 30, 2009, the latest information available). In fiscal year 2010, net unreimbursed cost of government sponsored indigent healthcare services for nmhc totaled $117. 2 million. Through longstanding partnerships with two of chicago's federally qualified health centers, near north health service corporation (near north), which includes the james and catherine denny primary care and preventive medicine center at the lawson house ymca, and erie family health center (erie), northwestern memorial has implemented a successful multiyear program to develop sustainable results in the care of indigent patients with diabetes and developed and implemented a replicable, culturally appropriate model for comprehensively addressing disparities in breast health services. Through these partnerships, community residents in need and the homeless have access to care and support services so they can receive necessary healthcare in their own communities and access to hospital-based services at nmh. Northwestern memorial also expanded community outreach by providing support to safety net hospitals and other health organizations in the community. As described further in this report, nmh helped a number of local and national hospitals implement electronic health record systems by providing custom developed order sets and consulting services without charge, saving these hospitals thousands of hours of labor-intensive work and costly consulting fees. Nmh and nlfh also sponsor numerous programs to promote health and wellness, healthcare career training, youth mentoring, language assistance and a multitude of volunteer programs to enhance the quality and accessibility of our care. Northwestern memorial's net unreimbursed cost for these activities for fiscal year 2010 was $14. 2 million. As the only acute care hospital located in chicago's growing downtown area, more than 48,900 adult patients were admitted as inpatients in fiscal year 2010 at nmh. As the only emergency department (ed) in downtown chicago with 24/7 service, nmh had more than 80,600 ed visits in fiscal year 2010, up 15 percent since fiscal year 2005. Nmh also is chicago's only academic medical center hospital participating in city and state level i trauma networks and as a level iii neonatal intensive care unit, enabling the provision of the most extensive lifesaving care to the most seriously injured adults and the sickest infants. Nlfh's board-certified emergency physicians and trauma-trained nurses serve and support the region 10 emergency medical system, providing trauma and emergency care to patients at its level ii trauma center at nlfh and at the northwestern grayslake emergency center. Additionally, nmh is a designated leadership center in