After much study, it should not be surprising that the best way to manage ill seniors, is by communication – between patients, nurses and doctors. This communication essentially continues and reinforces the flow of information that patients need to help maintain effective care regimens. This is particularly true when the patient is older and may have multiple medical conditions, medications and health care providers. The models needed are not costly, bureaucratic, government driven programs to oversee this, but fundamental models of e-communication and voice communication, backed up by regular face to face interactions. In summary, traditional good patient care and followup. But this model requires that we have enough doctors and nurses to interact and both disciplines are stretched thin. It also will require a more robust integration of e-communication tools to allow patients tele-access to their care providers, thus reducing the need for excessive travel, which is often a physical and financial burden for the ill elderly. That is the best medicine for the economic concerns addressed in these articles and the simpler the system created the better and more useful it will be . . . jomaxx
Programs to coordinate care for chronically ill Medicare patients may not reduce hospitalizations, cut costs, researchers say.
An ambitious effort to cut costs and keep aging, sick Medicare patients out of the hospital mostly didn’t work, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. These results show how tough it is to manage older patients with chronic diseases, who often take multiple prescriptions, see many different doctors and sometimes get conflicting medical advice.
Mathematica Policy Research Inc. in Princeton designed the “pilot project.” In their analysis, Mathematica looked at 15 care-coordination programs involving more than 18,000 fee-for-service Medicare patients with chronic problems such as congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease and diabetes. Only two programs were successful, and both had certain features in common, namely more contact between nurse-coordinators and patients and more contact between coordinators and physicians. The studies lead author said that both these programs had good relationships with local hospitals and with patients’ physicians.
For two programs — Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa, and healthcare provider Health Quality Partners in Doylestown, Pa., — the treatment group did have lower expenditures than the control group, but the differences were not statistically significant, the researchers said. Those findings suggest that the potential exists for care coordination interventions to be cost-neutral and to improve patients’ well-being, according to the researchers.
Sobering results for cost-cutting Medicare project @ http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/feb/10/health/chi-ap-med-medicaredisappo
Medicare Faces Challenges Caring for Chronically Ill @ http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=623921
Care Coordination Programs Do Not Meet Goals @ http://www.medpagetoday.com/Geriatrics/Medicare/12834
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/301/6/603
http://www.condron.us/
www.blogburst.com
Programs to coordinate care for chronically ill Medicare patients may not reduce hospitalizations, cut costs, researchers say.
An ambitious effort to cut costs and keep aging, sick Medicare patients out of the hospital mostly didn’t work, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. These results show how tough it is to manage older patients with chronic diseases, who often take multiple prescriptions, see many different doctors and sometimes get conflicting medical advice.
Mathematica Policy Research Inc. in Princeton designed the “pilot project.” In their analysis, Mathematica looked at 15 care-coordination programs involving more than 18,000 fee-for-service Medicare patients with chronic problems such as congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease and diabetes. Only two programs were successful, and both had certain features in common, namely more contact between nurse-coordinators and patients and more contact between coordinators and physicians. The studies lead author said that both these programs had good relationships with local hospitals and with patients’ physicians.
For two programs — Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, Iowa, and healthcare provider Health Quality Partners in Doylestown, Pa., — the treatment group did have lower expenditures than the control group, but the differences were not statistically significant, the researchers said. Those findings suggest that the potential exists for care coordination interventions to be cost-neutral and to improve patients’ well-being, according to the researchers.
Sobering results for cost-cutting Medicare project @ http://archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/feb/10/health/chi-ap-med-medicaredisappo
Medicare Faces Challenges Caring for Chronically Ill @ http://www.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=623921
Care Coordination Programs Do Not Meet Goals @ http://www.medpagetoday.com/Geriatrics/Medicare/12834
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/301/6/603
http://www.condron.us/
www.blogburst.com