Salt Lake City: Livability in the 21st Century

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INTERMOUNTAIN
HEALTHCARE
Right: Intermountain Healthcare’s Dr. John Carlquist, PhD, participated in
the CARDIoGRAM study, an international effort to identify genetic markers
associated with coronary artery disease.
Below: Intermountain Healthcare maintains an unwavering focus on
improving clinical quality, resulting in fewer medical complications,
readmissions, faster recoveries, and reduced healthcare costs.
Since its inception in 1975, nonprofit Intermountain
Healthcare has provided high-quality healthcare to residents
across the Intermountain West. Intermountain employs
more than 33,000 people, serving patients at 22 hospitals
and more than 185 clinics. In addition, Intermountain owns
or financially supports 18 community clinics serving
uninsured and low-income patients. Intermountain also
operates SelectHealth, a health insurance company providing
coverage to more than 550,000 members. Intermountain is
governed by a twenty-member board of trustees and more
than 400 other trustees who serve on hospital, regional, and
foundation boards. These community leaders donate their
time to ensure Intermountain fulfills its mission of providing
excellent healthcare.
Intermountain recognizes that each person who visits one
of its hospitals or clinics for care is unique. Patients are
treated as individuals in the physical sense, of course, but
also in terms of life stories, outlooks, and personalities. With
this premise in mind, Intermountain focuses on a number of
key areas to help physicians, nurses, and other caregivers
provide the treatments most effective for each patient.
One of these areas is research. Intermountain Healthcare is
one of the leading clinical research organizations in the nation
and has developed eight clinical programs—cardiovascular;
oncology; women and newborns; primary care; surgical
services; intensive medicine; pediatric specialties; and
behavioral health—to serve as platforms for sharing and
implementing medical best practices throughout the
Intermountain Healthcare system. Not only are Intermountain
physicians, nurses, and other clinicians seeing real results in
terms of improving patient care and medical outcomes as a
result of these clinical programs, but others outside the
organization are taking notice as well. In 2011, U.S. News and
World Report recognized several Intermountain hospitals for
excellence in healthcare delivery in the magazine’s annual
“Best Hospitals” ranking, and in the same year Intermountain
was chosen to lead the Patients Hospital Engagement Network
Initiative, a group of seven health systems contracted by the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to develop and
share best practices in clinical quality and patient safety.
A specific example of how research at Intermountain
Healthcare is improving patient care and outcomes is the
CARDIoGRAM study, an international effort to identify
genetic markers associated with coronary artery disease.
Intermountain’s study contributions included data gleaned
from collecting and analyzing samples from willing heart
patients for the past eighteen years, led by molecular biologist
John Carlquist, PhD. This data helped CARDIoGRAM
researchers identify thirteen new markers, effectively doubling
the known markers linked to coronary artery disease. While
the team is gratified by the new findings, they know they still
need to figure out how those markers interact and how they
can use that information to create workable treatments. Much
more work needs to be done—and is underway. (In fact,
Intermountain’s extensive use of data mining to directly
improve patient outcomes, as utilized in CARDIoGRAM
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