Aetna (NYSE:
AET)
and the Aetna Foundation have awarded grants totaling $750,000 for three
separate studies examining the impact on patient health of better
communication among health care providers and stronger coordination of
health care services. The studies home in on care coordination as a key
strategy to improve health outcomes and ultimately lower costs of health
care delivery.
Grants of $250,000 each were directed to Community Health Center, Inc.
(CHC), headquartered in Middletown, Conn., to study coordinated care in
a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC); Weill Cornell Medical
College, based in New York City, to examine the role of visiting nurses
in care coordination; and the National Assembly on School-Based Health
Care (NASBHC), based in Washington, D.C., to analyze better ways to
coordinate care for adolescents who often are treated in a variety of
settings, including school-based health centers.
“These three studies, which examine care coordination in different
health care settings and among different populations, will provide us
with much-needed understanding of coordinated care,” said Gillian
Barclay, D.D.S., Dr.P.H., vice president of the Aetna Foundation. “The
more precisely we can envision what coordinated care looks like and how
best to weave it into the everyday delivery of health care, the closer
we can get to an optimal delivery of care that produces the best
outcomes at the lowest cost.”
Currently, the United States spends about 18 percent of its gross
national product on health care yet ranks 37
th in the world
in the performance of its health care system, according to the World
Health Organization. Care coordination is a central component of health
care reforms, such as the patient-centered medical home and accountable
care organizations.
Care coordination is often defined as a patient-centered,
interdisciplinary approach where all of a patient's needs are managed
across providers and settings in an integrated, cost-effective manner. A
recent study published in the
Annals
of Internal Medicine found that primary care providers for Medicare
patients typically share patient care for their caseload with 229 other
physicians with whom they should coordinate care.
More on the awarded grants follows:
Aetna awarded $250,000 to
Community
Health Center, Inc. to develop and validate a measurement toolkit to
evaluate care coordination specifically for primary care practices
providing outpatient care for underserved populations. The toolkit
measures will evaluate the effectiveness of care coordination from the
perspectives of the patient, the primary care staff and the health care
organization. The research team, led by principal investigator Daren
Anderson, M.D., vice president and chief quality officer of CHC, will
test the care coordination measures at a cross-section of CHC sites.
Connecticut’s largest network of FQHCs, Community Health Center has
primary care sites in 13 communities in the state, as well as
school-based clinics and mobile dental units. CHC serves 130,000
patients, nearly all living at or below 200 percent of the poverty
level. The results of CHC’s two-year study have implications for similar
safety-net settings in the United States.
The Aetna Foundation awarded $250,000 to the
Weill
Cornell Medical College for a study to analyze communication between
home health nurses and physicians caring for recently hospitalized
Medicare patients with congestive heart failure. The study, which is
being conducted in collaboration with the Visiting Nurse Service of New
York, is being led by Matthew Press, M.D., M.Sc., assistant professor of
public health and assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell
Medical College and by Linda Gerber, Ph.D., professor of public health
at Weill Cornell Medical College. Researchers will track in a
retrospective cohort how often attempts by home health nurses to
communicate with physicians were unsuccessful, assess whether failed
attempts were associated with increased risk of hospital readmission,
and provide insights into why these failures occur. By potentially
revealing a common—and remediable—lapse in the quality of
post-hospitalization health care, this study has the potential to make a
significant contribution to the national effort to improve care
coordination, reduce hospital readmissions, and achieve better
interprofessional collaboration.
The Aetna Foundation awarded $250,000 to the
National
Assembly on School-Based Health Care to examine the current state of
health care coordination for adolescents, who often receive primary care
from multiple providers, including school-based health centers. While
most adolescents are healthy, most either have no annual preventative
health visit or do not receive the full package of recommended services
during their annual physical, such as immunizations, behavior screening
or risk-reduction counseling. Researchers will contrast health care for
adolescents in five communities, representing various health care
delivery settings, racial and ethnic minorities and geographic regions
of the United States. Leading the project is NASBHC’s President Linda
Juszczak, D.N.Sc., M.P.H., M.S., C.P.N.P.
Improving health care through better integrated and coordinated care is
one of the Aetna Foundation’s three program areas, in addition to
fighting the obesity epidemic and promoting racial and health care
equity. Over the past 18 months, Aetna and the Aetna Foundation have
awarded grants totaling nearly $2 million
for
projects in the United States and
the
United Kingdom to promote integrated health care and measure the
effectiveness of integrated care models.
About the Aetna Foundation
The Aetna Foundation, Inc. is the independent charitable and
philanthropic arm of Aetna Inc. Since 1980, Aetna and the Aetna
Foundation have contributed $394 million in grants and sponsorships,
including $15.6 million in 2010. As a national health foundation,
we promote wellness, health, and access to high-quality health care for
everyone. This work is enhanced by the time and commitment of Aetna
employees, who have volunteered more than 2.3 million hours since 2003.
Our current giving is focused on addressing the rising rate of adult and
childhood obesity in the US; promoting racial and ethnic equity
in health and health care; and advancing integrated health care. For
more information, visit
www.AetnaFoundation.org.
About Aetna
Aetna is one of the nation's leading diversified health care benefits
companies, serving approximately 36.4 million people with information
and resources to help them make better informed decisions about their
health care. Aetna offers a broad range of traditional, voluntary and
consumer-directed health insurance products and related services,
including medical, pharmacy, dental, behavioral health, group life and
disability plans, medical management capabilities, health care
management services for Medicaid plans and health information exchange
technology services. Our customers include employer groups, individuals,
college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, health
care providers, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor
groups and expatriates. For more information, see
www.aetna.com.
Copyright Business Wire 2012
