Primary care at the Alaska Native Medical Center: a fully deployed "new model" of primary care.

OBJECTIVES: Beginning in the 1940s health care for Alaska Native people was delivered by the United States Indian Health Service. The transition to Alaska Native ownership was completed in 1998-9 with the transfer of the Alaska Native Medical Center to Alaska Native corporations.
METHODS: The Native leaders of Southcentral Foundation made a conscious decision to redesign the medical primary care system around the core premise of optimizing long-term, trusting, accountable relationships. The medical system was reoriented to optimize these relationships, assure whole system intentional and integrated design, and remove barriers to these relationship being formed.
RESULTS: . The transformed system allowed Alaska Native individuals and families to choose a primary care provider, enter into long-term trusting relationship with the provider, and partner in the journey towards wellness. It was a fully integrated approach that used every part of the system to best advantage, put the power in the hands of the individual and family, and effectively focused on the underlying determinants of health.
CONCLUSIONS: The primary care system created and managed by Southcentral Foundation at the Alaska Native Medical Center demonstrated a system built on similar premises to the "New Model" of family medicine.