Recently we had the chance to sit down and talk with Donna Katen-Bahensky, the president and CEO of University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics and a member of Health CEOs for Health Reform.

In the video below, Katen-Bahensky describes her organization's efforts to change the dynamics of modern medicine through the principles of accountable care organizations (ACO).

The academic medical center operates as part of UW Health -- a consortium of health care related entities that includes the UW School of Medicine and Public Health as well as a commercial health insurance plan and the largest academic, multispecialty physician group in Wisconsin. As such the organization's ACO has had particular success breaking down the silos of care that exist today and encouraging doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and all of the members of the health care continuum to work together as a team as the care for patients.

As Katen-Bahensky notes, this collaborative model has been especially important for primary care -- realigning the incentives to make field more attractive and viable to new doctors. Furthermore the consortium's commitment to the community through programs like the rural residency program, has helped create an environment where nearly two-thirds of the doctors it trains continue to practice in Wisconsin after graduation.

UW Hospital and Clinic's integrated approach has produced significant clinical and quality achievements as well. Like Denver Health, it has used health IT to improve the quality of care for patients -- particularly in the ICU. Like Ascension Health, UW Hospital and Clinics has focused on measuring and improving clinical outcomes. The health system consistently performs above national benchmarks for patient satisfaction and its post surgical mortality rates are especially impressive.

In part because of the way we finance graduate medical education, academic medical centers like UW Hospital and Clinics face an incentive structure that is like fee for service on steroids. Thus, like all of the members of Health CEOs for Health Reform, UW Hospital and Clinic's willingness to change its business model is courageous. Furthermore, its ability to do so while improving the quality of care it delivers and creating a system that values primary care is actually attractive to doctors, is proof that changes we need as a nation are not just possible but already in practice.