Providence Health System offers continuum of care: this Catholic, not-for-profit hospital provides modern care and new technology.

• Author: Tobenkin, David
• Position: ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY'S 2006 CORPORATE 100

Providence Health System of Alaska (PHSA) aims to go the extra mile in providing health care service to Alaskans by providing patients with continuous care from birth to death.

"We're the only health care delivery system in Alaska with a continuum of care that uniquely sets us apart from anyone else," says Al Parrish, chief executive of PHSA. "We deal with the poor and the vulnerable by trying to provide a continuum of care for them from before birth to the last days of their lives. We try to look and measure how successfully we do that by segment: prenatal services to expectant mothers, work with dads on beginning of lives, all the way to hospice services for chronic pain and assisting patients in preparing for the ending of their lives. Our range of service includes acute care, family practice situations, outpatient imaging centers, acute long-term care, assisted living, long-term care, and programs that thread through many units. This allows our family practices physicians to refer those patients requiring acute care into system at the right level."

PHSA truly is a system. The jewel at its center is the 364-bed Providence Alaska Medical Center (PAMC) in Anchorage, which boasts a full panoply of cutting-edge medical services. In addition, the system includes acute and long-term care facilities in Seward, Kodiak and Valdez; three long-term care facilities in Anchorage; and family practice and behavioral health clinics in Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. With more than 3,600 employees and Alaska revenue of $804 million in 2005, PAMC is Alaska's largest private employer by employees, according to the Alaska State Department of Labor and Workforce Development. PHSA is part of the not-for-profit Providence Health System organization, which extends across four states, including Alaska, Oregon, Washington and California.

THE EXTRA MILE

In a rugged and enormous state like Alaska, going the extra mile quite often can mean a sled, helicopter or jet. PHSA's LifeGuard Alaska Providence Air Ambulance service provides local, statewide, national and international advanced life support and critical-care air ambulance services, with a fixed-wing and helicopter fleet that averages 1,250 flights a year. LifeGuard Alaska flies locally and worldwide, taking patients to PAMC, other health care facilities, or home after care. All of the aircraft are staffed by Providence nurses, neonatal, maternal and pediatric specialists, and physicians who are...