Monday, September 16, 2013

Special needs and population health management

Buried in a discussion of improving care of patients who spend a lot of time in emergency rooms, and who cost health care systems a lot of money, is a very interesting phrase
Practicing Award-Winning Population Health | McKesson Better Health
... HCMC decided to open the Coordinated Care Center after its internal studies showed that 3 percent of its patients were responsible for about half of its total costs. To ensure a focus on those high-cost patients, the care center has admitted only patients who had been hospitalized at least three times in the previous 12 months.
... HCMC realized that drug use, homelessness, mental health issues and cognitive impairments are “the kinds of things that fuel super-use,” he says, so it structured the Coordinated Care Center around multidisciplinary teams that include not only doctors but nurse care coordinators, social workers, behavioral health workers and drug abuse counselors who “work together on the underlying problems.”...
Drug use and homelessness are always included in discussions of health care costs, but I do not recall ever seeing mention of cognitive impairment, and of programs specifically targeting cognitively impaired adults who are seen in emergency rooms.

I'll be tracking this.

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