Healthcare that’s bigger than you.

Natural evolution is the ultimate form of innovation. If you pay attention, nature can teach all businesses how to thrive, no matter how nasty the economic environment.

Earlier this year, we were privileged to help rebrand Clinica Adelante; a community clinic that was founded to serve the health care needs of farm workers in Maricopa County, AZ 30 years ago.

In that time, their business environment has changed dramatically. Immigration laws and urban sprawl have significantly impacted their patient population. State and federal funding is harder to secure, especially with patient count in decline. And competition from private practices is growing as subdivisions replace farms.

Yet even with all of these impacts, Clinica Adelante remains true to its mission:

“Adelante Healthcare continually seeks to improve the health of our communities by providing quality, comprehensive primary health care within each patient’s ability to pay.”

However, in order to continue to serve the underserved, Clinica Adelante needed to evolve, and innovate quickly, to attract privately-insured patients. In January we took their leadership through a branding program. We discussed their nine convenient locations, top-notch doctors, electronic health records initiative, etc.. These are all great features, and yet none of them are brand differentiators. So we dug deeper.

The key to their new brand is in celebrating the organization’s heritage of growing from the land, while making it relevant for the next 30 years. But being relevant wasn’t enough. Clinica Adelante challenged themselves to be leaders. We started by updating its name and organizational persona to reflect its new brand position: “Sustainable Healthcare.”

The original logo depicts the organization’s heritage, while the new brand celebrates  its relevance today.

Sustainable Healthcare

The “Sustainable Healthcare” platform isn’t just about going “green.” The brand position has three equally significant legs.

1. Sustaining the health of the individual patient: Sustaining individual health includes all of the above features, offering multi-disciplinary services, and becoming an online and offline resource for healthier lifestyles through diet, fitness and green living.
2. Sustaining the availability of health care for all: True to its mission, Adelante Healthcare will continue to serve the needs of all patients – regardless of their ability to pay – through central locations, convenient hours and a multi-cultural staff.
3. Sustaining the environmental health of the communities they serve: Adelante will become a leader in green clinic operations, educate on living healthier lifestyles, and promote environmental sustainability.

Another way to view Adelante’s position is: “Healthcare that is bigger than you are.”

That’s a ubiquitous “you,” meaning that when anyone associates with Adelante as a privately insured patient, they are healing more than just themselves. They are helping others benefit from high-quality healthcare, while also contributing to a community that strives to make the home, neighborhood, and planet a healthier place.

Operationally, becoming a model of sustainable healthcare is an ambitious goal. It doesn’t happen overnight. The goal is to have a definitive plan in place with measurable outcomes. Adelante is relying on organizations like the Teleosis Institute, Practice Greenhealth, and CleanMed for best practices in sustainable operations. They have also hired a new sustainability professional to enact change throughout the entire organization for waste reduction and recycling, energy efficiency, organic cleaning and maintenance, and green building materials for expansion and renovations. Adelante recently moved into its first LEED-certified clinic in Buckey, AZ, with more to come.

Avein Saaty-Tafoya, MBA, HCM, is CEO of Adelante Healthcare. She said one of the challenges in their evolution was defining what “Sustainable healthcare” means.

“Our greatest obstacle was clarity. There were many assumptions about our new brand given the new focus on sustainability, as well as all the activity outside our industry in the green movement. Park&Co helped make this brand identity relatable and easy to understand.”

Here’s what Avein had to say about the opportunities the new brand position presents.

“It honors our mission, which is grounded in continuing the provision of health services whether a patient is insured or loses their coverage. It touts our business model, which as a non-profit community based collaborative must drive revenue and cover expenses, while at the same time increase efficiency and contain costs. We are exceeding expectations when it comes to quality and financial metrics. We are becoming a state and national model because of innovative programs like our collaboration with the Farmers Market Association at our centers. This partnership helps our patients gain access to affordable and healthful organic produce. Simple initiatives like this one have made a positive impact on our staff, patients, and the communities we serve.”

By helping Adelante Healthcare share its mission of sustainability with a broader audience, we helped it secure its own sustainability as a business and a brand. We’re proud to be part of their innovative evolution to thrive in the next three decades and beyond.