Northwest Community Healthcare's PHO joins Illinois Health Partners

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, DOWNERS GROVE, ELMHURST and NAPERVILLE, Ill., Feb. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwest Community Healthcare's (NCH) Physician Hospital Organization (PHO) has agreed to join Illinois Health Partners (IHP), effective immediately.

More than 500 physicians who represent Northwest Community Health Partners, NCH's PHO, and NCH's Clinical Integration Program will be joining the IHP network, which will expand to be one of the broadest systems of primary and specialty care physicians who care for HMO patients in Illinois. Through this agreement, IHP will represent 1,800 affiliated physicians and serve more than 110,000 patients in west, southwest and northwest suburbs of Chicago with the potential to add additional physicians to the network in the future.

"This partnership is an important opportunity and will allow NCH to remain independent while growing as a competitive, efficient and high quality system of care," said Stephen Scogna, President and CEO of NCH. "NCH is dedicated to keeping our community healthy. This alliance helps to enhance our partnership with physicians, expand the resources available to our HMO patients, and better manage our community's health and associated costs," said Scogna.

In addition, NCH will collaborate with IHP to develop clinical initiatives and identify quality performance measures that translate to direct improvements in clinical care. 

"This is an exciting expansion of Illinois Health Partners," says Pam Davis, System CEO, Edward-Elmhurst Healthcare.  "We're proud to be partnering with NCH as we all work together to improve the quality of care patients receive and control costs in this era of healthcare reform."

"The addition of NCH enables Illinois Health Partners to have a greater impact on the healthcare experience of patients across the suburban region," says Mike Kasper, CEO of DuPage Medical Group. "The growing number of high quality physicians and facilities in the IHP network will allow us to reach the ultimate goal of IHP, to offer a better healthcare experience for patients – one that enhances quality, value and access to as many patients as possible."

DuPage Medical Group and Edward Hospital were the founding joint venture members when IHP was created in 2011.  ELMCARE, the physician hospital organization which includes 430 affiliated and independent physicians on the Medical Staff at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital, joined Illinois Health Partners in January 2014.

To learn more about the NCH, and to view physician bios and videos, visit www.nch.org.

For more information about Illinois Health Partners, visit www.illinoishealthpartners.com.

About Northwest Community Healthcare (NCH)
Serving Chicago's northwest suburbs since 1959, NCH is a comprehensive, patient-centered system of care that serves more than 350,000 outpatients each year, as well as nearly 30,000 inpatients treated annually at the 496-bed acute care hospital in Arlington Heights. The award-winning hospital holds the prestigious Magnet designation for nursing excellence, is designated as a Primary Stroke Center, earned the Joint Commission's Gold Seal of Approval in 2011, and was awarded the Leapfrog Group's designation as one of the nation's Top Hospitals based on quality and safety criteria. NCH has four Immediate Care locations in the northwest suburbs and operates a FastCare Clinic in Palatine. NCH has a medical staff of more than 1,000 physicians, which includes the board-certified primary care doctors and specialists of the NCH Medical Group. These physicians have selected our facility as a place where they want to treat and care for their private patients. For more information or to find a doctor on the NCH Medical staff, visit www.nch.org.

SOURCE Illinois Health Partners