Abstract
In this course, integrated delivery Networks are a crucial topic which every student must familiarize themselves with. To acquire knowledge about IDNs, this report involves the University of Texas Health System as an example of IDN in Texas. The institution is ranked second in Texas after Tenet Healthcare, with 26 owned hospitals. The report will help understand IDN as part of the course and draw clear and comprehensive information about the University of Texas Health System. It can also be used by interested parties to acquire information about the institution to enable them to make informed decisions. There are many IDNs in the healthcare industry, but most people need to understand how they work and why they exist. Therefore, this study helps to provide information about the University of Texas Health System as one of the biggest and most popular IDN in Texas and outside the state.
The study uses peer-reviewed academic journals to collect information about the University of Texas Health System. It has also primarily used the UHCL library to acquire more comprehensive information about the institution, which enhances extensive analysis and conclusion. The research has found that IDNs play a significant role in the health industry by enhancing and providing comprehensive research on various health issues, advancing education, and improving healthcare facilities. The University of Texas Health System has remained impactful in the health industry of Texas and has worked to achieve its mission and vision, which is to improve quality of life. The study has also helped me understand the University of Texas Health System as my chosen IDN, which is essential for my course.
General Description
An integrated delivery network (IDN) is a company or institution that owns and operates a network of several healthcare facilities or entities (Bouras et al., 2020). Texas has many integrated delivery networks, and the University of Texas is second on the list. It has 12,423 affiliated practitioners, second to Tenet Healthcare which has 24,218. University of Texas (HS-X8PMGZPMG56R) has 26 hospitals that are owned and operated under its management (Compile, n.d.). To appear in the second-ranking position, several factors are considered, including the number of hospitals owned by the IDN, patient volumes, and affiliated physicians. Hence, the University of Texas is a famous healthcare system in Texas missioned to advocate for a higher quality of life through quality healthcare services. The organization’s vision evolves with creating a vital, inclusive health ecosystem.
The University of Texas System has been operating for more than 130 years now. It has been committed to improving the lives of not only Texans but also people worldwide through research, education, and healthcare services. The institution produces more than 64,000 graduates annually, which has significantly improved the healthcare industry. Generally, its owned and affiliated hospitals and clinics account for more than 9.2 million outpatient visits and almost 1.8 million hospital days per year. The University of Texas System has over 85,000 healthcare professionals, researchers, and support staff. It impacts the health sector directly by providing quality healthcare services and indirectly by producing competent graduates who are available to serve in the industry.
The University of Texas General History
The University of Texas at Austin was founded in 1883 by the Texas State Constitution. In 1891, the University of Texas established a medical branch in the city. The institution was influenced by the need to provide medical education in the state’s capital. However, the movement toward creating a medical school in Austin hastened in the late 2000s. When starting, the University of Texas at Austin had eight professors and 221 students. The institution has grown fast, where it is among the top 40 universities globally. By 2012, the University of Texas had become one of the state’s most influential and famous medical schools. It was known for having a medical school and teaching hospital. The university is setting itself apart with the audacious objective of changing health care and is a game-changing asset to central Texas and the institution.
History of Mergers and Acquisitions
Since its establishment, the University of Texas has had several mergers and acquisitions aimed at improving healthcare services in the state. For example, in 2019, the university merged with UT Tyler (UTT) and the UT Health Science Center at Tyler (UTHSCT). However, UTHSCT was to retain its status as a health-related institution. This was an internal merging between the two medical colleges.
Recent News, Events, or Issues of the University of Texas IDN
The University of Texas Health System has recently released good news for a social issue in the current communities. Intimate partner violence has become a serious and prevalent public health issue that leads to other health issues like physical and mental health difficulties and trauma. It has established a Strength at Home (SAH) facility, which has been used to reduce intimate partner violence. The program is aimed at minimizing intimate partner violence in our communities. Intimate partner violence has become prevalent, and cases have been increasing daily. To mitigate this issue, the University of Texas Health System has used the SAH program, which has worked, but its patient outcomes as implemented within organized health care have not been examined (Creech et al., 2023). Through the SAH program, the University of Texas Health System has positively impacted Texans and all people worldwide by minimizing intimate relationship violence that has become an issue even with economic growth.
Since 1987, the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation has made grants and commitments of approximately $147.9 million to institutions aiming to improve health care, advance regional economic and cultural development, create a greater quality of life for all Borderplex residents, and transform education. The Hunt Family Foundation recently announced a $500,000 commitment to the University of Texas Health Science Center. This is aligned with goals to support students wanting to pursue a master’s degree in public health and increase the number of public health practitioners in the region. The funding is aimed at helping students cover their tuition costs and other financial needs. This goes in hand with the primary objective of the University of Texas Health System to improve quality of life. Hence, students willing to attend the University of Texas have been granted an opportunity to become what they wish to be in the medical field.
Concerning the University of Texas Health System’s recent events, the institution has a couple of events scheduled for April 2023. On April 7, 2023, an event is scheduled to take place on WebEx from 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM. It will be a thesis presentation by Michael Anosike on assessing comfortability and willingness among substance use professionals. Other April 7, 2023 events include a dissertation defence by Katie Burforf on measuring objective traffic-related safety for active commuting to school, a dissertation defence by Dennis Ogeto Nyachoti, and a dissertation defence on Tuberculosis disease and risk factor comparisons.
Another event scheduled on April 10, 2023, is the thesis presentation by Mobin Khajeh on investigating the association of dietary metabolites with cardiovascular health outcomes (Events, 2023). Also, on April 20, 2023, the Austin campus will be holding an event exploring changes in dietary habits regarding known correlates of food insecurity. Generally, all events are health-based, aiming to improve quality of life or advance health care services. This helps the institution enhance quality health care services to its customers and create awareness among the public about emerging issues and how they can be controlled.
Even if the University of Texas Health System has achieved a lot in advancing education and improving healthcare services, there are several drawbacks associated with its operations. First, the institution is alleged to violate Title VI by illegally engaging in racial discrimination based on skin colour. It is said to promote, sponsor, offer, and market a discriminatory program that engages in racial discrimination. An example of an instance where the institution practices racial discrimination is through its GoKAR program. This program operates illegally and exclusively for caregivers and their 4-5-year-old kids who must be white and illegally excludes and discriminates against non-whites (Rao et al., 2021). Thus, anyone who is not categorized as white, even if they are caregivers, is not granted the opportunity for the program. This leads to a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlaws discrimination based on race. Hence, the University of Texas Health System faces these allegations as a serious issue because it makes its equity in service provision fail.
Secondly, despite significant advancements in pediatric cardiology and cardiovascular surgery, congenital heart disease (CHD) still remains one of the primary causes of death among infants and young children in the US (Agrawal et al., 2019). In most cases, patient-independent and patient-related factors affect the impact of patients with congenital heart disease. For example, the patient’s geographical location may influence the outcome of the patient with CHD. In the US-Mexico border, outcomes and management of people with CHD are complicated by additional issues that result from a complex interplay between two different health systems and socioeconomic disparities. With the University of Texas Health System aiming to improve health care services, it has been challenging to deal with congenital heart disease at the US-Mexico border due to the named factors. Hence, CHD in the region remains a serious health sector issue, especially for the University of Texas Health System, to mitigate health issues and improve quality of life.
The University of Texas Health System also faces another issue the high uninsured rate in the United States. In Texas, more than 4.5 million people lack health insurance exceeding California, despite population differences. Even so, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) positively impacted reducing the uninsured population (Seewaldt, 2020). This Act brought coverage to 1.2 million Texans reducing the percentage of uninsured from 22 percent to 16 percent. However, 16 percent is still the highest percentage of the uninsured population today. Due to a high number of uninsured people, the University of Texas Health System faces issues in the provision of healthcare services because most patients lack enough funds to cater to their healthcare expenses. Hence, the institution faces difficulty in ensuring that the quality of life is improved and everyone gets quality healthcare services. Also, tight Medicaid rules have impacted the issues faced by the University of Texas Health System because most people cannot afford to acquire insurance. When people have no insurance coverage, they are more likely to miss health care services because they cannot afford medical bills.
Services Provided by University of Texas Health System and Scope
Most important is the health services that the University of Texas Health System provides to the public. With its mission to improve quality of life, the institution has opened various healthcare facilities to offer easy access to quality healthcare. For example, the University of Texas Health System owns 26 hospitals that provide different health services. Dell Seton Medical Center is a 24/7 emergency care and level I trauma center for adults at the University of Texas Hospital in Austin. Through the provision of quality health services, the institution has helped mitigate and control serious diseases prevalent in most parts of the United States. For example, the institution provides accurate diagnoses and effective care units to reduce and control infectious diseases like viral hepatitis B and C, osteomyelitis, and sexually transmitted diseases. In 2019, the University of Texas Health System proposed a program for building a health communication brand for the institution’s tobacco control (Mackert et al., 2019).
The University of Texas Health System is at the forefront of the provision of quality education to students. The university produces a significant number of graduates in the medical field. It is a dynamic and rapidly expanding health science center with five professional schools, including dentistry, nursing, medicine, the school of biomedical sciences, and health professionals. As a result, Texas is offered adequate quality and competent professionals from the University of Texas Health System. For example, in 2020, more than 15,000 students were awarded degrees across all undergraduate and graduate programs in the University of Texas Health System. These graduates help serve at various state hospital levels, improving the health sector. The institution also provides medical practitioners with opportunities to serve in its health centers as they provide health care services.
The University of Texas Health System also plays a significant role in the research of the medical field. The institution is widely known for its research and discoveries concerning medical issues that face current communities. For example, according to the research by Singer et al. (2020), the University of Texas Health System conducted research on the prevalence of intestinal parasites in a low-income Texas community in 2020. This helps the state to discover emergent medical issues that face the communities and recommend effective ways of controlling them. Research provides important information about disease trends and risk factors, outcomes of public health interventions, and behaviours of the diseases. It also helps to unveil the unknown factors that influence the outbreak of certain infections. Thus, the institution also helps educate the public on various diseases, symptoms, and risk factors and how they can be minimized. Kakio et al. (2019) asserted that Texas University conducted a health checkup follow-up project to determine those unaware of suffering from chronic kidney disease and prevent it from developing into the CKD stage. This helped Texans to find out if they had kidney disease and conducted follow-ups for the treatment measures.
The University of Texas Health System has a wide scope of its services to the public, from education provision of health care services and research. The University of Texas provides other courses apart from medical-related courses like communication, journalism, engineering, business, social sciences, and marketing courses. The institution does not leave its graduates after completing their courses, rather they help in creating jobs by opening various healthcare centers in the states. This also helps the state improve income generation, which is crucial in enhancing economic growth.
The executive management team
The office of health affairs runs the UT systems of health institutions. It is in charge of overseeing the whole system, and hence it is the responsibility of that office to run the system. They run the health system with the help of the presidents of institutions. They both facilitate the success of the system by ensuring there is a provision of excellent health care. They as well establish academic plans and programs, facilities planning, construction, health care delivery, and personnel matters, both nonacademic and academic. According to the leadership plan, which was effective starting January 2023, the Office of health affairs has different levels of management. The board of regents falls at the top of the hierarchy, followed by Milliken, the chancellor (academic and health institution presidents). Below the chancellor is the executive vice chancellor (Zerwes). The senior vice chancellor (Shaw Thomas), vice chancellor for health affairs and chief medical officer (Lakey), associate vice chancellor for health affairs (Carruth) and Solberg and Melancon, the assistant to the executive officer, are at the same level.
University of Texas Health System Stakeholders
The University of Texas Health system composes of various stakeholders who enhance its operations. The main stakeholder of the organization is the University of Texas which is the sole founder of the University of Texas Health System in Austin. The organization is the organization’s main investor as they aim to improve health care services for all Texans and people worldwide. Also, sponsors play a significant role in the implementation of the objectives of the University of Texas Health System. For example, the Woody and Gayle Hunt Family Foundation is a key stakeholder since they are committed to funding students to study at Texas University (Bird, 2022). Another type of stakeholder is the employees, who form a key aspect of the healthcare sector. Doctors, nurses, and other care providers keep the project running by offering quality services to the public in the health centers. In any organization, customers are another stakeholder who plays a crucial role in organizational operations. In this case, the community or the public are the health system’s customers. The public has enhanced research done by the institution aimed at improving quality of life. This type of stakeholder is arguably the most important project stakeholder of all. Without them, the project would not exist.
Structure Organization
The University of Texas Health System is administered through a decentralized leadership system. Thus, each healthcare facility may make its independent decisions, and they do not rely on one central power to implement ideas. Also, this type of system allows organizations to compete among themselves, which helps to improve customer service. In this type of structure, the University of Texas structures itself so each business unit operates as its own company with its manager. This structure helps other sub-businesses’ employees a sense of importance and improves their engagement. Also, decentralized organizations have faster decision-making because organizations do not have to wait for decisions to be approved.
How University of Texas Health System Approaches Their Mission in Healthcare
The mission of the University of Texas Health System is to make lives better through excellence in education, research, health care, and community engagement. The institution approaches its mission by investing heavily in the four aspects of the mission. For example, in excelling in education, the University of Texas provides quality education, which helps to improve literacy in the state and outside its borders. Also, it provides not only medicine-related courses but also engineering, business, and biochemistry fields. This helps to minimize illiteracy which is also a determinant of deteriorating health care among people. Another approach that the University of Texas Health System also uses is to achieve its mission by enabling various research and studies through the school programs. The institution provides the students and other researchers with a conducive environment that motivates them to conduct their research effectively.
The University of Texas Health System mainly focuses on improving the quality of life for the community members. To enhance the quality of life, healthcare services are essential because it helps to prevent or cure diseases that kill most people. The University of Texas Health System has 26 hospitals which show their urge to provide health care services to their people. Hence, the University of Texas Health System extends its services by opening new healthcare facilities committed to providing quality healthcare services. It helps to control and prevent chronic diseases affecting most Texans’ quality of life. This helps the institution to approach its mission, especially in improving the quality of life in Texas.
Executive Summary
Integrated Delivery Networks (IDN) are simply defined as organizations that own and operate a network of several healthcare facilities. In such organizations, the healthcare facilities share one governing board or management while they are led by the same vision and mission of improving the quality of care and patient satisfaction. This research involves the University of Texas Health System as an IDN headquartered in Austin, Texas. It has 26 hospital facilities under its management and is ranked second in Texas after Tenet Healthcare. The research uses various research methods to collect data. It primarily relies on peer-reviewed scholarly articles and books to extract relevant data. It also uses government reports that are available online on government websites. The report hypothesizes that the University of Texas Health System is very significant in the healthcare industry in Texas and worldwide. Another research hypothesis is that this IDN has improved the quality of life, especially in Texas.
The research analysis showed that the University of Texas Health System had played a significant role in the healthcare system through its services. It has also listed some of this health system’s recent events and issues. The University of Texas Health System holds various types of research on healthcare and nursing issues, which helps to improve quality of life. This is achieved by providing robust data on various healthcare issues and making crucial recommendations through research. It also provides comprehensive information that healthcare practitioners can use to improve their services, especially to enhance their quality of life. Some of the report’s findings include how the University of Texas Health System is managed and organized and its issues in providing quality healthcare services. For example, the main challenge they face in delivering healthcare services is many uninsured Texans who cannot afford quality healthcare services (Ela et al., 2021). Also, the institution has several allegations of racial discrimination of segregating black people. However, it has made crucial steps in enhancing the quality of life for many Texans.
Reflection
The project involves how IDNs work and how they are managed. In this case, I presented comprehensive research on the University of Texas Health System, the second IDN in Texas. While I have learned that this health system has significantly impacted the health industry, it has also helped me understand IDNs and how they work to improve healthcare. As part of my course, this project has enabled me to identify several issues in the organization of IDNs and how they operate objectively to enhance the quality of life. Hence, in my future career in the health management course, I will have comprehensive knowledge about IDNs which has enabled me to practice the role of an analyst in a consulting company in the healthcare industry.
The research has provided crucial information about the University of Texas Health System as an IDN, which will also help us to understand the institution and how it has significantly impacted the health sector. When the topic was introduced in the course, I had yet to learn how the IDNs work, but the research has enabled me to understand it well as part of the course. This project is also beneficial in actual work scenarios because it provides information about the importance of IDNs improving quality of life. Also, it helps executive managers identify various issues facing IDNs and services that they should focus on to achieve their objectives of improving quality of life. It can also be used by stakeholders like investors to understand the University of Texas Health System well.
References
Agrawal, A., Swaminathan, S., Guvvala, S. L., & Gorla, S. R. (2019). Border Medicine: The Pediatric Cardiology Perspective. Pediatric Cardiology, 41(1), 202–205. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00246-019-02171-7
Bird, J. B. (2022, February 5). Hunt Foundation Expands Scholarship Support for El Paso-Area Students to Attend UT Austin. UT News. https://news.utexas.edu/2022/02/04/hunt-foundation-expands-scholarship-support-for-el-paso-area-students-to-attend-ut-austin/
Bouras, M. A., Lu, Q., Zhang, F., Wan, Y., Zhang, T., & Ning, H. (2020). Distributed Ledger Technology for eHealth Identity Privacy: State of The Art and Future Perspective. Sensors (Basel, Switzerland), 20(2), 483. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20020483
Compile. (n.d.). Top IDNs in Texas – Compile. Www.compile.com. Retrieved April 10, 2023, from https://www.compile.com/top-idns/top-idns-in-texas/
Creech, S. K., Benzer, J. K., Bruce, L., & Taft, C. T. (2023). Evaluation of the Strength at Home Group Intervention for Intimate Partner Violence in the Veterans Affairs Health System. JAMA Network Open, 6(3), e232997. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.2997
Ela, E. J., Vizcarra, E., Thaxton, L., & White, K. (2021). Insurance Churn and Postpartum Health among Texas Women with Births Covered by Medicaid/CHIP. Women’s Health Issues. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.whi.2021.11.002
Events. (2023). Www.uth.edu. https://www.uth.edu/calendar/
Kakio, Y., Uchida, H., Takeuchi, H., Okuyama, Y., Umebayashi, R., Watatani, H., Maeshima, Y., Sugiyama, H., & Wada, J. (2019). Report of health checkup system for chronic kidney disease in general population in Okayama city: effect of health guidance intervention on chronic kidney disease outcome. International Journal of Nephrology and Renovascular Disease, Volume 12, 143–152. https://doi.org/10.2147/ijnrd.s198781
Mackert, M., Case, K., Lazard, A., Oh, J., Hughes Wagner, J., Hawk, E., Cofer, J., Hurst, A., Elerian, N., & Lakey, D. (2019). Building a health communication brand for University of Texas System tobacco control. Journal of American College Health, 67(4), 291–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2018.1469504
Rao, N., Chang, J., & Paydarfar, D. (2021). Characterizing the performance of emergency medical transport time metrics in a residentially segregated community. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine, 50, 111–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajem.2021.07.013
Seewaldt, V. L. (2020). Time for action: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion significantly improves breast cancer care for women in Louisiana. Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.33264
Singer, R., Xu, T. H., Herrera, L. N. S., Villar, M. J., Faust, K. M., Hotez, P. J., Aiken, A. R. A., & Mejia, R. (2020). Prevalence of Intestinal Parasites in a Low-Income Texas Community. The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 102(6), 1386–1395. https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.19-0915
write