The Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers — backed by
a $8.7 million in funding support — announced plans Tuesday to establish a
national center to improve care for so-called “super-utilizers,” hospital
patients who inadvertently contribute to unnecessary health care spending in
the United States.
Super-utilizers are high-need patients who experience
poor outcomes despite extreme patterns of frequent hospitalizations or
emergency care.
The coalition’s national center is being created to help
communities improve care for patients with complex health care needs. The
project is being funded by $8.7 million from AARP, The Atlantic Philanthropies
and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The 15-year-old Camden Coalition, led by Dr. Jeffrey
Brenner, has spent more than a decade identifying high utilizers of health care
services and developing strategies to improve their care through coordinated,
data-driven and patient-centered approaches. A big part of its strategy is
addressing needs that have traditionally been considered “nonmedical,” such as
addiction, housing, transportation, hunger, mental health, and emotional and
educational support.
The national center will seek to bring together
practitioners working with super-utilizer patients around the country, and to
serve as a hub to unite and advance the nascent field.
“Across the country, innovators are developing new models
of health care delivery that lower costs and improve care for patients who are
overwhelmed by the challenges of navigating the complexity of the American
health care system,” said Brenner, executive director of the Camden Coalition.
“By developing a professional home for those who are involved in this rapidly
growing field, we hope to bring disparate efforts together to improve the
research base, share emerging ideas, and inspire the next generation of health
care providers."
Susan Reinhard, senior vice president and director at
AARP, said she expects the center’s work will help change the way people think
about aging. “Instead of keeping the most vulnerable patients well,” Reinhard
said, “fragmented care and poor transitions often force patients to seek
intensive emergency care—which is draining for patients and caregivers alike.”
About 10 years ago, the coalition issued a report that
found that 20 percent of patients in Camden, N.J., accounted for 80 percent of
hospital costs in the city due to disorganized care. The study found one
patient had been to the emergency department 113 times in a single year, while
another made 324 emergency visits over the course of five years.
Brenner and his colleagues discovered that by identifying
these patients, improving transitions from the hospital back to their homes,
and providing needed medical and social support, they could reduce costly
hospital visits and improve patients’ overall wellness.
The coalition plans to solicit advice and recommendations
from innovators in the field and stakeholders in health care delivery from
around the country as its creates its national center.
“We have a generation of work to do in order to address
the mismatch between the health care system’s service delivery model and the
needs of patients with complex medical, behavioral, and social needs,” Brenner
said. “With 85 million baby boomers in the midst of retiring and state budgets
facing ever growing costs from Medicaid, it is crucial that we rethink our care
delivery models for the sickest and most complex patients. We’re building a new
field and a movement for better care one patient and one community at a time.”
Source: Philadelphia
Business Journal
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