01 / CONNECT
Establish continuity
Define a care team, its responsibilities, and a dependable way to maintain contact across encounters and settings.
The Healthcare Paradigm
Build the system around where healthcare happens.
Healthcare happens between people. The patient and care team are the center, where evidence, clinical judgment, individual circumstances, and available resources come together.
A dependable system organizes everything around that relationship to support timely, effective care.
01 / The destination
A system built to enable effective care.
The patient and adaptive care team are the focal point. Six dynamic corridors bring people, evidence, resources and practical support toward care. Four quieter rings illustrate proximity: direct support close to the encounter, sustainable infrastructure further out. The rings also suggest connections among corridors.
The care-centered paradigm · version 3
Bold inward arrows: support and capability delivered toward care. Fine outward arrows: needs, outcomes and learning returned to the system. Concentric rings: proximity and lateral support. The diagram describes functions, not a mandated ownership structure.
Center
Patient and adaptive care team working toward quality of life.
Petals
Six active resource corridors that maximize and sustain care capacity.
Rings
Proximity-based support, from direct clinical help to long-term infrastructure and governance.
Inside the Care Center · enlarged view
THE MISSIONQuality of Life
Patient-reported experience and goals, together with objective clinical findings and outcomes
THE CONTAINER OF CARE
Trust · Safe, valued, connected · Time and attention
Patient
Experience, needs, preferences, participation and agency
Adaptive Carepod
Professional competence, personal strengths, shared knowledge and clinical confidence
Care state → intentional response → time for response → reflection and adaptation
Emergency action when required; appropriate help today; flexible consultation; clear next responsibility; continuity along the patient's arc
Care leadership and direct treatment may be held by different team members. Common safeguards support variation in how carepods organize effective care. Informed consent and appropriate professional scope remain essential.
What the supporting rings do
INNERDirect care support
Communication, follow-up, coaching, navigation, coordination and immediate assistance.
SECONDClinical & access network
Qualified consultation, diagnostics, therapies, emergency pathways and clinical transitions.
THIRDOperations & administration
Workforce support, records, staffing, scheduling, supplies, protocols and protected team reflection.
OUTERFinancing, governance & accountability
Sustainable infrastructure, safety standards, funding, measurement and shared learning.
Common purpose. Shared safeguards. Adaptive practice. Carepods can use different justified approaches while the wider system learns from patient outcomes and improves the support available to every team.
02 / The current paradigm
Many decision centers. Many delivery points. Too little connection.
Today's system has remarkable clinical capabilities, but independent decision structures can shape care through overlapping policies, interpretations, and constraints. At the delivery level, connections are often incomplete. Patients and care teams are left to bridge the gaps.
A fragmented, top-down structure
Illustrates common structural fragmentation, not every organization or patient experience. Existing integrated care teams demonstrate that stronger connections are possible.
03 / The transition
Change what the system is organized to do.
The path forward begins by strengthening the center, then aligning the surrounding resources. Better organization must improve both the effectiveness and the timeliness of care without shifting more burden onto patients.
02 / SUPPORT
Extend timely access
Use appropriate, more frequent support contacts and clear escalation pathways so scarce clinical expertise reaches people when needed.
03 / ALIGN
Make resources accountable to care
Test operating and financing arrangements, measure meaningful outcomes, refine them with patients and care teams, and expand what works.
From
Toward
Fragmented encounters
Sustained care relationships
Patient-managed navigation
Care-team-supported coordination
Delayed or disconnected access
Timely contact and appropriate escalation
Activity measured mainly through utilization
Access, progress, experience, and outcomes
Resources organized in separate structures
Resources aligned to enable care
The next question
How do we build it in Minnesota?
This paradigm provides a direction, not a claim that every answer is settled. The roadmap will identify what can be demonstrated, who must participate, how costs and risks can be shared, and what evidence would justify expanding the model.