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 37th 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.
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