Essentia Health has been selected to join the prestigious STAR Clinical Research Network, which focuses on improving health across common and rare diseases, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, COVID-19, vasculitis and other conditions.

Essentia is one of only 10 health systems that comprise the research network.

Essentia was selected, in part, for its rural footprint—about 84 percent of its geographic service area is classified as rural. Essentia is also a leader in clinical research and have been a top recruiter for large pragmatic clinical trials, including three led by cardiologist Dr. Catherine Benziger 

“We are honored to join the STAR Clinical Research Network and engage in deeply meaningful work that improves people’s health and wellbeing,” said Kate Dean, executive director of the Essentia Institute of Rural Health (EIRH), which spearheads Essentia’s commitment to research. “This will enable Essentia to bring even more research opportunities to our patients and ensure rural communities are represented in—and thus more likely to benefit from—clinical research.”

“These opportunities are important because patients who participate in research get better care,” added Dr. Benziger. “We strive to not only advance medicine, but also to give the best care to our community. Research is an integral part of that care.”

STAR is comprised of Essentia; Vanderbilt University Medical Center; Vanderbilt Healthcare Affiliated Network; Stanford University School of Medicine; Duke Health Care System; the University of North Carolina Health Care System; the Medical University of South Carolina; Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist; Meharry Medical College; and the Mayo Clinic. The network also includes numerous academic and community hospitals, as well as hundreds of outpatient practices and community stakeholders. STAR stands for Stakeholders, Technology and Research.

“This allows us to extend our interests and expertise in patient-centered research that focuses on the patient voice to help guide the work we do,” said Stephen Waring, DVM, PhD, principal scientist at the EIRH.

Essentia Health continues to rank as one of the top performers across all clinical quality measures in Minnesota, according to the latest report from Minnesota Community Measurement (MNCM), a statewide resource for timely, comparable information on health care quality, costs and equity.

Based on data analyzed by MNCM for care delivered in 2022, Essentia was ranked as a high performer—one of only seven organizations in the state to achieve this. This marks the fourth straight year Essentia earned high-performer status.

“It is a great honor to rank as one of the highest performers across all clinical quality measures in the state of Minnesota,” said Dr. Maria Beaver, interim chief quality and patient safety officer at Essentia. “This is a testament to the amazing care provided by all our clinical care teams and all our colleagues who support them.”

The annual report features comparative data on medical group and clinic-level performance on key measures. High performers are defined as scoring significantly above the statewide average on at least 50 percent of the measures for which they are eligible. You can view the entire report here.

“We celebrate this recognition of the great care provided to our patients,” Dr. Beaver said. “We also look forward to learning from this report and each other about how we can continue to improve the care we deliver to the patients and communities we are privileged to serve.” 

Minnesota Community Measures issues its Health Care Quality Report annually in three separate findings. This report is the third of those three parts for care delivered in 2022. Consumers can use this information to compare quality performance of different providers and see how their providers are performing in comparison to the statewide average.