SEARHC Joins Mayo Clinic Care Network
The Native-run health consortium gains access to Mayo Clinic specialty consults and digital clinical tools for its Southeast Alaska clinicians.
Updated on Nov. 10, 2026 in Native American
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SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium has joined the Mayo Clinic Care Network, connecting its clinicians with Mayo Clinic medical knowledge, specialty consults, and digital solutions. The membership lets SEARHC physicians and advanced practice providers retain primary responsibility for patient care.
Why it matters
The integration is aimed at healthcare barriers in rural and frontier parts of Southeast Alaska, where distance from specialists is a long-standing challenge. It seeks to reduce costly and disruptive long-distance medical travel away from Alaskan Native communities.
SEARHC clinicians serve 26 communities throughout Southeast Alaska. The source does not provide utilization figures for the new Mayo Clinic services.
The players
SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC)
SEARHC is one of the nation's largest Native-run non-profit health organizations, serving 26 communities across Southeast Alaska.
Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit academic medical center based in Rochester, Minnesota, known for its multispecialty clinical care and research.
Dr. Cate Buley
Dr. Cate Buley is the Chief Medical Officer at SEARHC.
The details
Through the membership, SEARHC clinicians can use AskMayoExpert for point-of-care clinical decision support across hundreds of adult and pediatric conditions. They can also request eConsults for formal second opinions from Mayo Clinic subspecialists without patient travel, and join eBoard video conferences with Mayo Clinic multidisciplinary panels.
Timeline
November 9, 2026: Article announcing SEARHC's membership in the Mayo Clinic Care Network is published.
Patient Care
The partnership extends the tribal health consortium model that SEARHC operates within Alaska's Native health system. It adds an outside academic specialty network to services previously delivered locally.
Patients in SEARHC's 26 communities may be able to receive specialist input through their local clinicians rather than traveling for consultations. The source does not state when these services become available to patients.
The takeaway
Specialist expertise can reach rural Alaskan communities through clinician-to-specialist consultation rather than patient relocation. Readers tracking rural health access in Alaska can watch for how these services are rolled out and used.
Further reading
For more on Native-led health initiatives, see Native American coverage.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Hitconsultant.
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