One Health Launches Center of Excellence for Autoimmune and Inflammatory Disease
NAPERVILLE, Ill., Oct. 6, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- For people with complex autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, getting answers can sometimes take years.
Patients may move from one specialist to another, repeat tests and manage multiple medications while trying to piece together what is happening to their health. Even when they are receiving excellent care, the burden of connecting that care too often falls on the patient.
What could change if the specialists and resources needed to solve a complex case worked together sooner?
That question is at the heart of the new One Health's Autoimmune & Inflammatory Disease Center of Excellence, a care model that brings specialists, diagnostic resources, pharmacy and other expertise together around patients and their condition.
Instead of treating each specialty as a separate experience, the Center of Excellence is designed to give the care team a more complete picture of the patient's health. Physicians work across specialties, share information and make decisions with greater context, while patients spend less time trying to determine which provider to see next or whether everyone involved in their care has the same information.
"People with complex health conditions shouldn't have to become the coordinators of their own healthcare," said Ali Karim, General Manager of One Health. "When a condition crosses specialties, the care should too. We built the Center of Excellence model so the right panel of experts and coordinators can come together around the patient instead of leaving the patient to connect the pieces themselves."
Unlike traditional centers of excellence built around a hospital, academic medical center, or other physical destination, the One Health Center of Excellence model isn't defined by a building; it is a tech-enabled platform with experts. The care team and resources are connected around the patient, allowing specialized expertise to reach people through the physicians and locations where they already receive care.
That approach is particularly important for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, which can affect multiple systems in the body and require expertise across different areas of medicine. The Center of Excellence is designed to connect that expertise earlier, helping physicians see beyond an individual diagnosis or appointment to understand the patient's health more completely.
"Complex conditions don't fit neatly within the boundaries of a single specialty," said Dr. Manish Jain, a rheumatologist at Ravenswood Rheumatology, a One Health practice. A symptom that looks like one thing in isolation may mean something very different when you can see what is happening across the rest of the patient's health. Bringing that expertise together gives us an opportunity to see things we might otherwise miss and make more informed decisions about what comes next."
The Autoimmune & Inflammatory Disease Center of Excellence is the first within the One Health model.
One Health is developing Centers of Excellence around complex conditions where bringing multiple specialties and resources together can create a more connected experience for patients and a more complete picture for their physicians.
ABOUT ONE HEALTH
One Health is a nonprofit healthcare organization building a national ecosystem designed to make healthcare more personal, accessible and centered around people. Through its growing network of healthcare organizations, One Health supports patients, physicians, practices and care teams across 35 states. Unlike traditional healthcare organizations, One Health reinvests surplus revenue into its mission, organizations and the care they provide, rather than generating returns for outside shareholders or investors.
SOURCE One Health
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