Northwest Healthcare is Vital to Southern Arizona’s Well-Being

3/27/2024

We deliver essential medical services – and positively impact the larger community in many other ways

Over the course of 2023, Northwest Healthcare played a vital role in helping people get well and live healthier in Southern Arizona. Our more than 845,000 patient encounters – across four hospitals, Northwest Primary & Specialty Care physician clinics, and other outpatient care sites – created a tremendous, positive impact on the communities we serve.

Patients, regardless of their ability to pay, received medically necessary (and sometimes lifesaving) care at more than 131,000 visits to our emergency departments in 2023. At our hospitals, patients were able to access medications and medical support devices – and patients who could not fully afford their treatments received substantial discounts (or even free care). During just 12 months, Northwest Healthcare provided more than $112.8 million in charity and uncompensated care to the community’s most vulnerable.

“We play a dynamic role in our community around the clock, every day of the year, to help people get well and live healthier,” said Brian Sinotte, FACHE, market CEO of Northwest Healthcare. “Our dedicated clinicians and caregivers use their skills, experience and compassion in service to the patients who count on us.”

Northwest Healthcare understands that good health depends not only on direct medical care, but on other important social factors. That’s why we financially support local charitable organizations such as Borderlands Produce Rescue, Tu Nidito and Clinica Amistad. In addition, during our annual Jars of Love Peanut Butter Drive, we collected more than 2,000 jars of nutritious nut butters for the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona.

Northwest Healthcare is committed to dedicating resources to the medical services, facilities and technologies patients need and want to access – close to home. For example, last year, we added robotic-assisted bronchoscopy to our menu of services. This minimally-invasive technology allows doctors to diagnose, biopsy, and stage lung cancer in a single procedure – and mark tumors in advance of surgery – so that patients can begin appropriate, individualized treatment much more quickly.

In addition, during 2023:

• Two specially-trained urogynecologists became very busy diagnosing and treating women living with painful, troublesome pelvic floor disorders. Many of these patients have said they are now able to get back to doing the activities they love, after only brief laparoscopic surgery.
• Northwest Healthcare’s robust structural heart program grew to feature nine cardiologists and a cardiac surgery team.
• Northwest Medical Center Houghton earned The Joint Commission’s Gold Seal of Approval® as an Accredited Advanced Primary Stroke Center.
• Our four fully-staffed hospital emergency departments, two freestanding emergency rooms and five total convenient urgent care locations offered timely, high-level care for emergent illnesses and injuries throughout Pima County.
• We made capital improvements totaling more than $33.6 million to expand patient access to care – which means we opened brand new facilities and invested further in existing ones, including Northwest Medical Center Houghton, Northwest Medical Center Sahuarita, two Northwest Urgent Cares – and our inpatient rehabilitation and skilled nursing facilities. These additions continue to strengthen our established footprint across Southern Arizona.

Above and beyond providing healthcare services, Northwest Healthcare supported civic resources and services by paying taxes of more than $55.5 million and sustaining an employee payroll of more than $316.5 million. Our employees, in turn, infuse the Southern Arizona economy each and every time they purchase local goods and services.

Workforce development is another high priority for us. In 2023, we maintained a strong focus on the future of healthcare in the community by investing in the graduate medical education program, where resident physicians hone their skills under the close supervision of experienced doctors. The first class of internal medicine residents arrived in 2023, and the program will add family medicine residents next.

Just as importantly, our relationship with the Jersey College of Nursing is designed to train and prepare nurses to care for our local communities – and, ideally, establish permanent roots here. We help new nurses achieve their personal and professional goals by offering student loan repayment assistance, as well as tuition reimbursement.

“The vital care we provide is only one part of the broad impact we have that adds up to more than $567.1 million last year,” Sinotte said. “We recognize that our services are essential to Southern Arizona, and we are committed to doing all we can to make this a healthier, better community for all.”

Learn more about Northwest Healthcare’s impact on Southern Arizona and the communities we serve here.

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