Essentia Case Study

Essentia Health serves patients in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Idaho and started out as collaboration between Benedictine Health System and SMDC Health system in 2004, but the roots of this partnership stem back more than 100 years to the establishment of St. Mary’s Hospital founded by the Benedictine sisters in Duluth, MN in 1888, It is here where Essentia receives its Catholic roots for its 27 Catholic medical facilities. In 2008 Innovis Health was added to the team and all three health care centers were reassigned to Essentia Community Hospitals and Clinics. With Essentia’s 18 hospitals, 68 clinics, eight long term care facilities, and two assisted living facilities patients are able to be treated for a range of medical needs including everything from sore throats and allergies, to congestive heart failure and cancer. Essentia operates a Cancer Center of Excellence and a Heart and Vascular Center of Excellence, both with 3 separate locations to better serve its patient base.
Essentia’s values include quality, respect, teamwork, hospitality, justice, and stewardship. They use their values to guide them to their vision of becoming a national leader in cost effective, integrated services with the highest quality of health care. Essentia is unique in that is has many Catholic facilities within in its organization that have their own Catholic mission. According to Essentia Health, that mission is “to promote Christ’s ministry of holistic healing for all human life with special concern for the poor and powerless.” (“Benedictine roots”