Global Care

Many hospitals and health systems are working on for-profit initiatives that are aligned with their core business but provide alternative revenue streams. One example is Cleveland Clinic's Global Care Program (www.clevelandclinic.org/cct ), which was rolled out in November. It is focused on US patients but expands Cleveland Clinic's global reach and provides a new revenue model from a desirable customer segment while also supporting its core business. This subscription program , provides any subscriber who is more than 150 miles from home, gets critically ill, and cannot fly commercially, with transport to Cleveland by an appropriate Cleveland Clinic medical team. According to one of the administrators for the service, they have individual, vacation, family, short and long term plans to sell to individuals, but they are trying to get employers to subscribe for their executives. Individual plans are as low as $170. Cleveland Clinic outsources the operation of the air ambulance to AirMed LLC based out of Birmingham, Alabama but staff it with its own clinicians. There are other services like this but none at this level that is integrated to the hospital, run by the hospital, with clinicians on the plane and coordinating care etc.