Adventist Health Physician Services

Adventist Health Physician Services (AHPS} works closely with physicians to deliver high quality care, increase patient safety and focus on customer service initiatives that benefit patients and their families. This collaboration is one way to further Adventist Health’s mission as we position physicians and our health system for growth, and to better meet the health care needs of our community.

Ambulatory care clinics throughout Adventist Health provide both primary and specialty care services in an outpatient setting for patients of all ages. These clinical operations operate within a variety of clinic models including: hospital-based outpatient clinics (HBOCs), rural health clinics (RHCs), and Adventist Health Physicians Network (AHPN) clinics.

Adventist Health Physicians Network

Adventist Health Physicians Network (AHPN) is a California medical foundation that provides physicians with opportunities to improve patient care coordination, enhance quality initiatives, and enrich the health of the communities they serve. AHPN is currently comprised of more than 70 physicians who encompass primary care services (e.g. family practice, pediatrics, internal medicine, OB-GYN) medical specialties (e.g. cardiology, neurology, nephrology) and surgical specialties (e.g. orthopedics, general surgery, vascular surgery, otolaryngology). As of year-end 2012, AHPN has established clinics in Bakersfield, the Central Valley, as well as Northern and Southern California.

Hospital-based Outpatient Clinics

Hospital-based outpatient clinics provide services to the areas around our hospitals. The HBOC is a setting in which integrated, and accessible primary and specialty health care services, deliver meaningful advantages and outcomes for our patients.

Rural Health Clinics

As an extension of our mission, high quality services are provided to small communities where access to care is often significantly less available than more urbanized areas.

Adventist Health operates one of the largest rural health clinic networks in the United States. More than 38 clinics provide health care to underserved populations throughout Northern and Central California, Oregon and Washington.

These clinics vary from small, one or two provider offices, to large facilities with primary care, specialty medical services, dental, behavioral health, perinatal and other services.

• Increased clinic patient visits by 5.5 percent in 2013, from 1.45 million to 1.53 million visits. Adventist Health Physicians Network (AHPN) expanded into in the Simi Valley market adding primary care, oncology, and cardiology clinics. A total of nine physicians joined Adventist Health’s Simi Valley regional network
• Added 12 new rural health clinics in 2013: eight in the Central Valley region, one in the St. Helena Clear Lake region, two in the Tillamook region and one in the Walla Walla region
• Rural health clinics had 858,501 patient visits in 2013, up 40,569 visits for an increase of five percent over 2012
• Established the central billing office to provide centralized expertise and coordinated functions for the clinic-based billing functions. This created both improved collections and decreased billing costs for AHPN regions
• Developed and implemented a Leadership Education and Development (LEAD) program to identify and train future clinical and operational leaders for Adventist Health Physician Services
• Initiated an ambulatory clinic-wide Patient Satisfaction Survey partnering with Press-Ganey, a nationally recognized vendor in patient satisfaction research. Participation by patients to date has been higher than benchmarks, identifying current best practices and opportunities for focus to achieve even better customer service
• Implemented Cerner Ambulatory electronic health record and practice management systems in over 80 clinics and provided education and training to nearly 500 providers
• Implemented an electronic Patient Portal, allowing patients to connect with their physicians and clinics through a secure messaging system including prescription refill requests, appointment scheduling, laboratory results, and secure clinical messaging
• Castle Health Group’s primary care physicians reached the 99th percentile for performance in outpatient quality indicators, increasing in two years from the 22nd percentile
• Completed several strategically important clinic acquisitions in multiple Adventist Health markets, adding specialties such as urgent care, oncology, cardiology, orthopedics, gastroenterology, and urology
• Achieved Meaningful Use criteria for more than 90 percent of providers implementing the electronic health record
• Established an AHPN Independent Physician Association (IPA) in the Southern California Network, enabling Adventist Health-based physicians to affiliate with this organization to better serve the managed care population in their respective markets
• Developed eight specific strategic projects to align with the Adventist Health 2017 Strategic Plan, focusing on operational performance, quality of care, physician alignment, leadership and patient satisfaction metrics