Learning from Bellin Health, an integrated healthcare provider in Wisconsin (US)

Chris Woleske, Chief Operating Officer at Bellin Health (and due to take up the CEO role from October), spent three days at ELFT last week sharing her experience and Bellin’s model for delivering high performance healthcare.

Bellin Health is widely renowned as one of the highest performing integrated care systems in the US. It  operates in Green Bay, Wisconsin, (home to the Green Bay Packers American football team!) and comprises a range of hospitals, healthcare providers and community-based partners. Bellin Health is a strategic partner to the IHI, just as ELFT is, and so we have managed to learn a lot from Bellin over the past few years. Our new ELFT strategy has incorporated lots of learning from Bellin’s strategy.

During a three-day visit to East London NHS Foundation Trust, Chris Woleske learnt about ELFT’s progress with its new strategy, and spent time with several groups working to deliver the strategy. She also delivered a masterclass, sharing Bellin’s high performance healthcare model which comprises:

1 – the strategic dimension

2 – the system of production

3 – the system of measurement

4 – the system of improvement

5 – the system of communications

6 – high performance culture

She left this message for all ELFT staff after the High Performance Healthcare Model masterclass on 16 August:

The presentation can be found here.

Over the past twenty years, Bellin Health has developed a ‘high performance health care model’ which integrates planning and improvement into the way the organisation is run. Bellin Health has also undertaken a large amount of triple aim work to improve population health, quality of care and cost of care, with much of this being done in partnership with the local community. Bellin’s work has been instrumental in helping us at ELFT develop our new mission and strategy.