Healthcare: Healthcare Systems

HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS

The Columbus Region boasts four acclaimed healthcare systems with hundreds of facilities and myriad specialties. Each system is also working to expand its community outreach and better serve its patients.

Residents of the Columbus Region can take advantage of four nationally acclaimed healthcare systems: OhioHealth, Mount Carmel Health System, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Between them, they offer hundreds of facilities and a variety of specialties ranging from cancer care and medical research to behavioral health services and stroke care.

The OhioHealth hospital system is the largest in the Region with 414 facilities, including nearly 70 primary care offices and nine urgent cares. The not-for-profit, faith-based system is best known for stroke and cardiovascular care, earning awards for excellence in stroke treatment at three hospitals— Grant Medical Center, Marion General Hospital and Riverside Methodist Hospital—in 2014.

Dr. Michael Waite, vice president of quality and patient safety for OhioHealth, says the hospitals monitor healthcare quality and safety closely to ensure that it’s patient-centered.

“We feel like we deliver the highest level of care and strive to be the safest place for people to receive care,” he says.

A commitment to excellent patient care unifies each system in the Region, but Mount Carmel has more than just that in common with OhioHealth. The 135-year-old Catholic system is also renowned for its heart and vascular care, as well as its women’s health program, emergency services and bariatric surgery; Mount Carmel East hospital, one of its 216 facilities (including four hospitals total), has dedicated heart and maternity centers on its campus. An affiliated higher education institution, Mount Carmel College of Nursing, offers the largest private BSN program in the state.

Making healthcare more accessible to patients is what motivates Mount Carmel Health, says Lorraine Lutton, the system’s president and CEO. “Now and in the future, we will make sure access to our care is where our patients live and work, and [we will] maximize the use of technology to enhance the patient experience,” she says.

As these systems continue to develop their inhospital practices, they’re also working to expand their imprint on surrounding communities by addressing social determinants of health like food insecurity, transportation concerns and housing insecurity. They’re investing more resources into community outreach, forging more community partnerships and providing aid through health and wellness programs.

Known for its world-class cancer care and medical research, OSU Wexner Medical Center is widening its focus to tackle those determinants head-on, says Dr. Iahn Gonsenhauser, the system’s chief of quality and patient safety. In addition to its plan to add ambulatory sites and an in-patient tower to its 260 facilities, the seven-hospital system has also partnered with the Mid-Ohio Food Collective to support its “Farmacy,” a program that provides patients in need with nutritious foods.

“What we recognize is that healthcare and healthcare outcomes really start long before a patient ever sets foot in the hospital,” he says. “My hope is that in the future, we’re connecting with patients and communities at that point and helping them to build health plans and coordinated care plans that are preventative in nature and that address appropriately many of those social determinants.”

These three hospital systems also conduct health assessments for their surrounding communities, determining what support the citizens they serve need most in order to lead the healthiest lives. A 2022 Mount Carmel East assessment for Franklin County cited racial equity, behavioral health and maternalinfant health as priority health needs.

Specializing in child and infant care and behavioral health, Nationwide Children’s Hospital is an award-winning, pediatric care center that treats the youngest patients in 52 facilities across Central Ohio, including 12 primary care centers, six neonatal network locations and its flagship hospital.

The organization opened the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion in 2020 to provide patients with dedicated psychiatric, developmental and psychological services for an array of conditions, from anxiety to autism spectrum disorder. (See “Prioritizing Mental Wellness,” page 80.) It also supports more than 1,000 clinical research projects into subjects like genomics through the Abigail Wexner Research Institute.

Nationwide Children’s prides itself on serving children regardless of families’ ability to pay and its ongoing research into personalized medicine. It also runs 11 Children’s Close to Home Centers, embedded in communities across Columbus, to provide children with accessible diagnostic and therapeutic services.

“Our goal is that every child should have the same access to healthcare and should have the opportunity to have the best outcome, and that’s something that we firmly believe in,” says Dr. Catherine Krawczeski, chief of the department of pediatrics at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

Image Credit: OSUWMC

Through the Healthy Neighborhoods, Healthy Family initiative, Nationwide Children’s expands its reach to community members’ homes. It partners with local organizations to help residents access affordable housing, educational opportunities, community-based health and wellness services, and economic development assistance.

OhioHealth and Mount Carmel have created several initiatives to better aid Columbus communities as well. The former introduced a mobile stroke unit to bring immediate, targeted care to patients, while the latter launched a community health and well-being program that helps members of lowincome, underserved communities better access basic health services.

With a renewed focus on elevating community health and decades of medical innovation under their belts, Columbus’ hospital systems feel more equipped than ever to serve their communities.

“Our role as a healthcare system is not just to provide healthcare when people need it, but actually to provide coordination with local partners and community partners to make sure that we’re getting people the support that they need,” Gonsenhauser says.