Minneapolis, MN — As the largest primarily rural health system in the United States, Sanford Health serves more American Indians in its clinics and hospitals in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota than any other large, major private nonprofit health system in the country. The health disparities among American Indians across the Northern Plains continue to be unacceptably vast, a condition that the indigenous people of Canada, New Zealand and Australia also experience. Learning from “pockets of success” in the U.S. and these other countries, I intend to gather information on best practices for integrating primary health care, behavioral health care and traditional healing so that the transformation of primary and behavioral health care delivery at Sanford Health can be best suited to serve American Indian patients, families and communities.
