One of the nation’s largest faith-based health care systems is changing its name as part of its push toward whole-person care and an ongoing commitment to home-based services.

Altamonte Springs-based Adventist Health System announced earlier in August that its entire network will rebrand to AdventHealth at the start of next year. The planned name and logo change is meant to reflect Adventist Health System’s overarching strategy of becoming a consumer-centric, connected and identifiable national health system that operates across the continuum of care, including the post-acute care landscape.

“AdventHealth is the culmination of a unified system brand strategy that is the tangible representation of a consumer-focused, fully integrated health care delivery network,” Terry Shaw, president and CEO of Adventist Health System, told Home Health Care News. “This unified name allows us to tell a cohesive story of our organization and our brand promise of wholeness, caring for the body, mind and spirit.”

Founded in 1973, Adventist Health System currently has more than 80,000 employees and nearly 50 hospital campuses in its network. Its post-acute care presence spans 20 different home health agencies, 15 skilled nursing facilities, six inpatient rehabilitation facilities, five hospices agencies and one long-term care hospital spread across 10 states.

Adventist Health System has a total operating revenue of about $10 billion and serves more than 5 million patients annually.

It plans to launch a cross-media transition campaign featuring television and print ads educating consumers on the new name and the “brand promise of wholeness” on Sept. 5, Shaw said. Changes to signage and visual elements at home health agencies, hospitals and other facilities are expected to take place in January 2019.

All wholly owned entities will following the rebranding strategy, but joint venture operations in certain markets, such as Colorado and Illinois, will maintain current branding.

“Being a more connected system will allow us to provide better care navigation within our care continuum, ensuring that we never discharge a patient, but instead become partners in their health for life,” Shaw said. “One of our team members recently said that uniting our system under one name has made her feel like we are now one big family.”

Building out home-based services

Similar to other large U.S. health networks, Adventist Health System has made it a priority to develop a strong home- and community-based footprint that works in tandem with its hospital campuses to better coordinate care and cut down on costly readmissions.

LifeCare Health Partners and Intermountain Healthcare are among the groups that have pursued likeminded strategies in recent months.

Building out home-based services was a focus for Adventist Health System in both 2016 and 2017, Melanie Lawhorn, director of communications and public relations for the system, told HHCN.

Adventist Health System is still “exploring various ways” to navigate patients from acute care to post-acute services, she said. Those efforts include standardizing post-acute back- and front-office functions, focusing on optimizing revenue cycle and developing setting-specific experience standards for home-based services.

“This initiative has allowed us to focus on wholistic care that builds an ongoing health partnership for life rather than an episode-based relationship,” Lawhorn said, noting that Adventist Health System will likely always continue to pursue post-acute assets. “We believe this continuous health partnership is more effective at keeping our patients healthy and reducing readmission inefficiencies.”

Adventist St. Thomas Hospice, Gordon Home Care, Martin County Home Health, Hospice of the Comforter, Preferred Choice Home Care and Preferred Home Health are just some of the home health and hospice entities under the broader Adventist Health System umbrella.

In preparation for the systemwide rebrand, Adventist Health System has spent the past eight months deploying consistent culture and service practices, training more than 60,000 employees on what it calls “The Whole Care Experience.”

“This engaging training experience aligns all of our team members across the country to the same service standards,” Shaw said. “During this experience, our team members are educated on our cultural framework and service model among peers from various areas of the organization, both clinical and non-clinical.”

Adventist Health System mostly operates in the Southern and Midwestern regions of the United States.

Written by Robert Holly