The National Public Health and Hospital Institute (NPHHI) was recently awarded a $250,000 grant from the Aetna Foundation for a year long study of best practices in integrated care at safety-net hospitals aimed at improving care coordination for underserved populations.
NPHHI, the research affiliate of the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (NAPH), will evaluate safety-net hospitals' readiness to become fully integrated systems via a survey of NAPH-member organizations.
The survey will explore a range of factors such as care coordination practices, operational effectiveness, focus on patients, families and community health, and effective leadership and culture, all with the aim of helping the hospitals restructure their services to provide seamless, efficient patient-centered care that improves health outcomes and moderates costs.
"Safety-net hospitals have a tremendous responsibility delivering high volumes of non-emergency health care services to vulnerable populations," said Gillian Barclay, vice president of the Aetna Foundation in a press release announcing the grant. "As safety-net institutions adopt new processes that fully integrate and coordinate care for their patients, we should see a significant positive impact on population health in this country, particularly among African Americans and Latinos who make up more than half of safety-net institutions' patient base."
According to NAPH, uninsured patients racked up close to 8 million doctor visits and nearly 3 million emergency department visits at its more than 100-member hospitals in 2009, the most recent year data are available. The average NAPH-member hospital provides care related to roughly 600,000 outpatient visits a year, five times the average of other acute care hospitals in the U.S.
"As hospitals and health systems move toward health care reform's vision of higher-quality, cost-effective patient-centered care, they must develop services that are seamless for existing patients while also preparing to care for the millions of newly insured," said Bruce Siegel, MD, president and CEO of NAPH and NPHHI, in a prepared statement. "Our research will be crucial to advancing the capability of public hospitals to coordinate and integrate the full range of patient care and benefit millions of vulnerable Americans who rely on their services for all their health care needs."
In addition to creating a baseline assessment of the hospitals, survey researchers will inventory specific gaps hindering safety-net hospitals from full integration and develop strategies for addressing those gaps. The NPHHI study also will produce case studies of several safety-net hospitals that have already achieved significant progress in implementing an integrated healthcare model.
Results of the NPHHI study are expected to be released in December of this year.