May 112022
 

This is an explanation of the Provider Network Analyses that the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care Analytic Services team created for the communities participating in the Using Data to Drive Improvement/Supporting Data and Communities Special Innovation Project.

As used on this web site, Provider Network Analysis (PNA) characterizes relationships among healthcare service providers in a network and enables the user to visualize the network as a diagram of interconnected nodes. PNA is a specialized example of a more general methodology called Social Network Analysis (SNA), and you may find that term used in some documentation on this web site when discussing PNA. Applied to the parties-to-transition table (PTT) from the Integrating Care for Populations and Communities Aim, PNA can inform intervention strategies by identifying the sender-receiver relationships that account for a large proportion of the community’s transitions.

Care transitions network diagrams depict the flow of transitions among providers in the community. Providers are shown as colored nodes, with a unique color for each provider type (e.g., Hospital, SNF, HHA). Transitions between providers are represented by an arrow connecting the two nodes. Unidirectional ties – where transitions flow only from sender to receiver – are depicted as black, single-headed arrows. Bidirectional ties – where transitions flow in both directions between providers – are depicted as red, double-headed arrows. The size and weight of the arrow indicate the tie’s relative strength: thicker arrows represent more transitions, and larger arrowheads represent higher flow in the direction indicated. The relative distance between providers is not intended to depict any specific aspect of their relationship. The position of the provider nodes is not based on geography. Node placement is determined by the “closeness” of providers measured by their frequency of interaction with one another.

Provider Network Analysis Example

Presented below is one product of PNA: the network diagram. This example is based on the Monroe, Louisiana, Hospital Referral Region Provider Network Analysis.

Provider Network Analysis of Monroe HRR

Monroe, Louisiana Hospital Referral Region Provider Network Analysis

The visual conventions used in the diagrams are presented in the picture below.

Example of Provider Network Analysis

Coding of Provider Network Analysis

The diagrams were derived from the PTT for the community of interest, depicting fee-for-service Medicare Part A (non-outpatient) claims during the calendar year 2011. Each diagram is filtered by a threshold number of transitions shared.

Filtering of ties by number of transitions may result in red, single-headed arrows, which indicates the threshold number of transitions being met only in the direction of the arrowhead. When the threshold of shared transitions is met in total, but not in either single direction, the tie will be red with no arrowheads.

Some things to look for

  • Thick, red arrows (especially if one node is a hospital; high back-and-forth flow suggests high readmissions associated with the downstream provider)
  • Hub and spoke patterns (often a hospital and its prominent downstream providers)
  • Several arrows pointing to a single node (leverage point for receiver intervention)
  • To enable sharing of the network diagrams among community stakeholders, provider identifiers have been replaced with an alias referencing provider type (e.g., “Hospital 1”). For Medicare provider numbers (hsp_id), the analyst should refer to the community’s provider identifier list. Moreover, the actual numbers of transitions shared among providers during this time period, which determines the thickness of the arrow, may also be useful.

Provider Network Analysis Filtering Example

Provider Network Analysis diagrams can be very confusing if many relationships are shown at once. To make major parts of the network more clear, simpler versions of the diagrams can be shown. By increasing the number of interactions required to show a relationship, the number of qualifying relationships will be reduced. This produces diagrams that show fewer connections.

Here is an example of a very complex diagram that conveys little information:

All providers for Cincinnati (CY 2011). Connections indicate one or more transitions shared.

Cincinnati provider network analysis, one or more transition filter, 2011.

All providers for Cincinnati (CY 2011). Connections indicate one or more transitions shared.

In the next diagram we only show connections with 10 or more interactions:

Providers connected by a minimum of 10 transitions (CY 2011)

10 or more transitions filter on a 2011 Cincinnati provider network analysis

Providers connected by a minimum of 10 transitions (CY 2011)

In the next diagram we only show connections with 30 or more interactions:

Providers connected by a minimum of 30 transitions (CY 2011)

30 or more transitions filter on a 2011 Cincinnati provider network analysis

Providers connected by a minimum of 30 transitions (CY 2011)

In the next diagram we only show connections with 100 or more interactions:

Providers connected by a minimum of 100 transitions (CY 2011)

100 or more transitions filter on a 2011 Cincinnati provider network analysis.

Providers connected by a minimum of 10 transitions (CY 2011)

Source material

Introduction to Social Network Methods (Hanneman & Riddle, 2005; This is an explanation of the Provider Network Analyses that the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care Analytic Services team created for the communities participating in the Using Data to Drive Improvement/Supporting Data and Communities Special Innovation Project.
http://faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/nettext/)

UCINET documentation (Borgatti, Everett & Freeman, 2002; http://www.analytictech.com/ucinet/)

Acknowledgements: Qualis Health, Colorado Foundation for Medical Care

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Mar 282018
 

By Les Morgan

The following reports were produced as deliverables for our project “Aggregating Care Plans to Manage Supportive Care Services for Elders” (Joanne Lynn, M.D., Principal Investigator).This project is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through Grant GBMF5662 to Altarum Institute. Dr. Lynn will provide a more detailed report on the project as a whole in a following blog post.

We are releasing these reports now particularly to help some of the community groups we are working with on data projects. The first three reports cover technical details of how care plans can be structured, stored, and shared in electronic information systems. Those three reports taken together provide useful information that can be used by community groups seeking insight into eldercare through the use of data aggregation methods.

Communities that are seeking to improve eldercare need trustworthy data to use in setting priorities and in monitoring improvements. One appealing approach is to aggregate existing health-related records and analyze the data for key indicators of how their local system is functioning. However, for most of the communities we have worked with, on a practical level the aggregation of this sort of data seems to be very difficult or impossible, given important concerns over privacy and the serious penalties associated with breaches of privacy obligations. Our hope is that these reports will help overcome some of the obstacles that stand in the way of improving care for some of our most vulnerable citizens.

To read the full reports in PDF format, click on the report name you wish to view.

Report 1

Interim Report on the Variety and Merits of Care Plan Templates and Regulations in Use, Including Implications for Information Technology [PDF]

Joanne Lynn and Les Morgan. October 20, 2017

Effective multidisciplinary clinical teams know their patients but document only a skeletal summary of the case. That summary generally includes diagnoses, basics of the living situation, medications, treatments, and supportive services in use or recommended. The various biases, omissions, and lack of long-term perspectives in the clinical documentation are substantial, as summarized in the report.

Our scan of forms and data formats for care plan documentation shows a wide variety of approaches. All made heavy use of free-text narrative elements. The most complete and up-to-date set of care plan records that we have seen was done longhand on a typewritten sheet by a single care coordinator responsible for over one hundred high-need patients seen at one hospital.

The electronic record systems that we reviewed used only to carry the minimal information needed for a C-CDA transmission mostly limited to immediate and near-term needs. None of the electronic records we examined were being used to record the caregivers with their roles, the prognosis, or an advance directive. None used the existing FHIR data format standards for complete care plans.

Report 2

Interim Report Summarizing Data Aggregation Methods in Use To Date and Their Strengths and Weaknesses [PDF]

Les Morgan. October 20, 2017

This is a high-level Information Technology (IT) architectural review discussing major variations in system design approaches for care plan data aggregation, based on a content analysis of interviews with vendors and some key users. A series of architectural diagrams is included to classify approaches. Our interviews with technology vendors are ongoing, and this preliminary summary of methods will evolve as we see more examples of working systems.

Report 3

Aggregating Patient-Level Data: Regulatory, Ethical, and Privacy Issues for Communities [PDF]

Les Morgan and Joanne Lynn. March 2018

This report gives an overview and assessment of regulatory, ethical, and privacy issues specifically related to the use of aggregated care plan and related health data for analytical use across defined geographical catchment areas. The literature covering regulation and privacy of healthcare data is extensive and often contentious. Our review here highlights some major sources for authoritative guidance, then moves on to the specific situation of using aggregated and de-identified data sets for geographic analysis. Regulations that are specific to requirements for maintaining care plans were covered in our prior project report (Interim Report on the Variety and Merits of Care Plan Templates and Regulations in Use, Including Implications for Information Technology) and are not repeated in this report.

A key conclusion of our review is that using aggregated and de-identified data on a broad geographic basis is probably not restricted as much as many of our community stakeholders and leaders think. Some uses of such data are specifically exempted from key privacy laws when appropriate protections are in place. Some regional health care payer systems and Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) have mechanisms to enable such research now, using very large data sets they have already compiled. This means that it is feasible to carry out pilot projects to demonstrate practical methods for data aggregation and analysis for a community or region in many parts of the United States.

Report 4

Benchmarking the Eldercare Workforce: A Community Focus [PDF]

Meghan Hendricksen and Joanne Lynn. February 2018

The overall purpose of this report is to provide an initial, alpha-version, benchmark of the workforce within geographic communities to use for illuminating comparisons with their own workforce estimates.

This baseline benchmark will provide a tool for consideration, and then feedback for improving the tool. In essence, we are creating the start of a learning system for optimizing the workforce in a geographic community. Once the estimates and ranges become substantiated in multiple communities and improvement activities, the maturing benchmarks will provide a trustworthy source of guidance for communities, where evidence is currently lacking, on what the priority needs are for the workforce that is serving older adults living in the community and also will provide a tool for monitoring improvements. Measuring the local workforce capacity also helps engaged community leaders to envision their whole system and its products, even though that “system” is owned and operated by many different entities that are not necessarily coordinated.

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Jan 042016
 

By Anne Montgomery and Leslie Fried of the National Council on Aging

One of the hallmarks of the 21st century—increased longevity of the population—will increasingly drive federal, state, and local health care programs to focus on optimizing coordination of services across a range of medical care and community services providers. Discharge planning will play a central role in these efforts, particularly discharge to home.

In November, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed regulation for hospitals (defined as including critical access hospitals, long-term care hospitals, and inpatient rehabilitation facilities) and home health agencies. Overall, it is a solid effort and a welcome step forward in calling for Medicare and Medicaid to interface with Older Americans Act providers and disability programs under the jurisdiction of the Administration for Community Living. All of these programs and others are centrally concerned with managing beneficiaries who have complex chronic conditions. They are also well-positioned to set out criteria that can help providers establish systems of joint management of complex patients over extended periods.

However, while the rule prominently references Aging Network providers—Area Agencies on Aging, Aging Disability Resource Centers, and Centers for Independent Living—in the preamble, it does not carry substantive discussion through to actually require health care providers to coordinate with these community-based organizations.

We see this as a shortcoming, since the array of services offered by these organizations, which include home and physical environment modifications, access to assistive technologies, transportation, meals, household services, and housing support, are essential to millions of Medicare beneficiaries who cannot function day-to-day without some assistance. Absent clear requirements for health care providers to coordinate with social services organizations, risks will remain high that many fragile, complex older adults living in the community will fall through the cracks and into crisis, cycling in and out of high-cost health care settings.

If we think about discharge planning in a larger context, it is effectively only the start of a successful transition. Keeping information about patients with chronic conditions in the hands of a “sending” health care provider only, with no explicit requirements to make adequate provisions for communications and preparations with “receiving” community-based organizations, is likely to result in frustration for families and missed opportunities. By comparison, to maximize opportunities for success, CMS could bring the Aging Network into discharge planning discussions as soon as health care providers start to prepare for a patient’s transition—and could determine the actual availability of these services. If it turned out that publicly funded community services were not available (possibly due to waiting lists and/or underfunding), health care providers could be asked to explore alternatives. In all cases, figuring out what options are actually available and affordable must be done in consultation with the patient and family caregiver.

To improve the chances that community social services organizations can be better funded, we believe that CMS should direct nonprofit hospitals to assess services shortages as part of their Community Benefit Needs Assessments, and take subsequent steps to mitigate and augment critically needed services in the community. For-profit hospitals should be similarly required to work with public health offices and Aging Network providers to assess and correct any inadequacies in service supply.

On a related point—assessment of the discharge planning process—we strongly encourage CMS not to limit these reviews to assessment of the impact on readmissions (§482.43(c)(10)). Rather, in the spirit of the regulation’s frequent references to Aging Network providers, we urge that hospitals be required to establish advisory committees to conduct periodic reviews that include community social services organizations and other stakeholders in order to track the full impact of discharge planning on patient outcomes over time.

In another area—the specific elements that must be covered in discharge planning documents—the regulation proposes varying requirements for different providers. In the case of home health agencies, for example, discharge and transfer summaries must include demographic information; contact information for the physician; an advance directive, if available; the course of the illness/treatment; procedures; diagnoses; lab tests and other diagnostic testing; consultation results; a functional status assessment; a psychosocial assessment, including cognitive status; social supports; behavioral health issues; reconciliation of discharge medications; all known allergies; immunizations; smoking or nonsmoking status; vital signs; unique device identifiers for implantable devices; recommendations for ongoing care; patient goals and treatment preferences; the current plan of care, including goals, instructions, and the latest physician orders; and “any other information necessary to ensure a safe and effective transition of care that supports the post-discharge goals for the patient.”

In contrast, there is a much shorter list for critical access hospitals to consider in the context of “areas where the patient or caregiver/support person(s) would need assistance.” It includes admitting diagnosis or reason for registration, relevant co-morbidities and past medical and surgical history, anticipated ongoing care needs post-discharge, readmission risk, relevant psychosocial history, communication needs (e.g., language barriers, diminished eyesight and hearing), patients’ access to non-health care services and community-based care providers, and patients’ goals and preferences. Yet another list of criteria pertains to “discharge to home” situations, which requires instruction on post-discharge care to be used by the patient or the caregiver/support person; written information on warning signs and symptoms; prescriptions, including the name, indication, dosage, and significant risks and side effects; medication reconciliation; and written instructions for patient follow-up care, including appointments, diagnostic tests, and pertinent contact information.

Logically, there should be a list of core elements that could also be the foundation for a common care plan, and which could then be readily shared across providers working in different settings. Requiring a list of core elements would simplify care coordination and basic communication between providers, and decrease confusion and chaos for families who are often confronted suddenly with very difficult tasks when taking a seriously ill or disabled person home. Perhaps the list of required elements outlined for home health agencies could be the basis for crafting standardized core elements for all covered health care providers, along with a person’s likely future course, strengths, treatment preferences, and goals.

Concerning the critical role played by family caregivers, the rule recognizes and acknowledges the importance of families in many places – yet does not clearly establish the voluntary nature of this support: In other words, the primary consideration in discharge planning with regard to family caregivers should be to determine their willingness to provide services. To address this, we hope that CMS will consider requiring health care providers to engage in a conversation and subsequently document that a family caregiver has been asked about specific supports that he or she may need, taking into account the family’s economic resources.

The regulation features thoughtful discussion medication reconciliation and health information technology (HIT). For beneficiaries with complicated medication regimens or a track record of medication problems, we believe that CMS should encourage covered providers to use a pharmacist or physician (as compared to a software program or a nurse) whenever practicable. To make strides on HIT, there may be scope for the agency to require a standard format for recording a care plan, in order to improve interoperability and to make care plans an integral part of standards for certified electronic medical records.

Finally, the regulation should guarantee that discharge planning documents are immediately accessible to patients and family caregivers. Under current protocols governing medical records, it is often difficult for family caregivers to obtain a medical record from a hospital until after discharge, even with a patient’s signed consent (which is not always possible to get if the patient is seriously ill). This is unhelpful and counterproductive for families and should not be allowed to be extended to discharge planning documents.

CMS’ discharge planning regulation is moving in the right direction. As the agency considers these and other ideas for improvement, we hope that the agency will take the opportunity to advance a national conversation on how discharge planning can play a key role in health and social services delivery system reforms.

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Jul 232012
 

By Dr. Kyle Allen and Susan Hazelett

The Summa Health System/Area Agency on Aging, 10B/Geriatric Evaluation Project(SAGE) is a collaboration between an integrated health system and the local Area Agency on Aging which was begun in 1995. SAGE  provided the organizational structure to develop the resources and processes needed to effectively integrate geriatric medical services and community-based long-term care services. Such integration is essential to bridging gaps between acute medical care and community-based care, enabling medical and social services providers to reach frail older adults living in the community with multiple chronic conditions, and to improve their quality of life. The SAGE project, which operates in the Akron, Ohio, metropolitan area, has managed to do just that. Results of the 17-year collaborative indicate that consumers, health care systems, health care providers, and payers have all benefited from the focus on integrating service delivery.

In the early 1990s, Summa Health System (SHS), an integrated not-for-profit health delivery system, had launched several projects aimed at improving care for frail elders. Summa comprises six community teaching hospitals with more than 2000 beds, as well as its own health plan, skilled home care, hospice, and a foundation. Summa’s insurance plan has 150,000 covered lives, including a Medicare Advantage Plan of 23,000.One of the projects being tested at Summa was the ACE (Acute Care for Elders) model, a model of hospital care delivery aimed at improving the functional status and clinical outcomes for hospitalized older adults. Recognizing that this model did not have the necessary patient connection in the outpatient setting, Summa realized it would need to expand its reach to elderly patients across the continuum of care. To this end, it created the Center for Senior Health (CSH), an outpatient consultative service that supports primary care providers by offering an interdisciplinary, comprehensive geriatric assessment; high-risk assessment; a geriatrics resource center; a clinical teaching center; inpatient geriatric consultation and outpatient consultation followup. The CSH attempts to treat and reach the whole patient by addressing acute and chronic medical needs, psychosocial needs, and family concerns. Despite the range of services provided, the CSH continued to be limited in its scope because it did not have access to patients in their homes, nor could it provide long-term case management. As a result, it began to rely increasingly on community-based long-term care agencies for this kind of information and management.

At about the same time, the Area Agency on Aging 10B, Inc. (AAA) found itself managing a growing number of consumers with functional decline, geriatric syndromes, and multiple chronic illnesses. The AAA, which serves more than 20,000 elders in Northeast Ohio, recognized that it needed to be better integrated with the acute medical sector if it were to achieve its goal of delaying and preventing nursing home admissions.

Leaders from Summa Health and the AAA recognized the challenges and deficits each one faced in providing continuity of care to patients/consumers, and began meeting to discuss how they could build a new, integrated model of care. They realized that they shared a common goal and vision to improve care for frail elders, and launched SAGE, which provided the organizational structure needed to effectively integrate their services. SAGE had no grants or funding, just a spirit of collaboration and cooperation, and a common desire to do more than just business as usual.

A SAGE task force was created comprised of staff from both organizations, including physicians, nurses, and social workers, as well as senior leaders, to promote communication, provide feedback, and create initiatives that linked the two. The group met monthly for two years, and now meets quarterly. Among its early objectives were the development of protocols to screen and identify at-risk older adults, to establish mechanisms for information sharing and resources, to identify gaps and duplication in service delivery, to locate a AAA case manager at the CSH, to educate staff from both organizations, to collect data and information, and to identify and address barriers to implementation.

Eventually SAGE created an RN care manager assessor program, in which placed an AAA assessor in the acute care hospital. The assessor works closely with the ACE team to identify hospitalized patients who can benefit from community-based programs, as well as patients who are eligible for PASSPORT, the state’s Medicaid waiver program. This was a new initiative for the AAA, which had traditionally conducted these assessments post-discharge, in the patient’s home. That assessment now occurs before the patient is even discharged from the hospital, thus helping to determine needs for  community based services and facilitating the process for eligibility  and approval for Medicaid long term care benefits.  This is beneficial because patients will typically receive Medicare covered services for skilled needs but long term care needs are not addressed as well and the Medicare skilled benefits are provided for only a limited time usually < 30 days.   Without the other supports this vulnerable population is at risk for poor health care access, emergency department visits and  hospital readmission. The AAA then assumes case management for the consumer, and offers periodic geriatric follow-up.

This program has facilitated improved capacity management for complex patients in the acute care hospital. It improved AAA communication with primary care and hospital staff, reducing repeat hospitalizations, ED visits, and nursing home placements. It improved outcomes for complex patients, and decreased discharges from PASSPORT to nursing homes. During the pilot period,  referrals to and enrollments in the PASSPORT program doubled.   The AAA was also successful in replicating this model at other hospital systems in the Northeastern Ohio AAA service area.  A more recent positive outcome  related to this collaboration work was the awarding for AAA 10b Inc. one of the first seven  Community Based Care Transitions projects from CMS/CMMI as part of the The Community-based Care Transitions Program (CCTP), created by Section 3026 of the Patient Protection and  Affordable Care Act

In developing SAGE, several barriers had to be overcome, primarily those affecting leadership of the program, development of an effective multidisciplinary workgroup, and resources (in terms of staff time). The program can be adapted by other communities around the country, offering their acute medical system and community-based programs a way to align their services and collaborate in ways that better address the needs of frail older adults.

Key words: community collaboration, SAGE Project, ACE Units, CCTP, 3026, pilot programs

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Jul 102012
 

Older residents (with fee-for-service Medicare) of a four-county region around Rochester, New York, are likely to benefit from the innovative programs being launched by a community-based care transitions project (CCTP) in that region. The “Community-wide Care Transitions Intervention” is anchored by Lifespan of Greater Rochester, a non-profit organization funded mostly by the Administration on Aging. The collaborative effort includes four acute care hospitals , two home health care agencies, and the regional independent health planning organization.

Of particular interest to MediCaring readers may be the involvement of the hospital pharmacist in this endeavor, which seems to be a key development to addressing the common problems of medication mismanagement. MediCaring talked to pharmacist Andrew Smith of Strong Memorial Hospital, and Brenda Bartock, RN, MPA, director of program development for Visiting Nurse Service of  Rochester and Monroe Co., Inc.

Smith explained that he receives a daily list of hospital admissions from which he selects the best candidates for the pharmacist intervention. The “best” candidates include those with what the program characterizes as an active Preventable Quality Indicator (PQI) diagnosis, or characteristics that put them at risk for re-hospitalization, such as comorbidities, polypharmacy, previous hospital admissions in the last year, or other risk factors such as living alone, absent social supports, or no transportation.  Smith then follows these patients during their hospitalization, meeting with them as soon as possible to discuss the enhanced hospitalization program and his availability to help them with medication. He will meet with them again near discharge, when he reviews medications with each patient (and family), focusing on what’s changed during the admission and what’s new, and letting them know that he is available to answer their questions. Using software called the Medication Action Plan, Smith gives patients an easy-to-read yet comprehensive medication list that they review together. He makes sure that prescriptions match insurers’ formularies and that schedules are workable for patients and family caregivers. Five days after discharge, he calls patients to follow up, making sure that they have not run into problems obtaining or using prescribed medications.

This is quite different from the usual process, in which there is no formal discharge planning with the pharmacist. Ordinarily, hospital pharmacists review what a patient has been prescribed during the stay, and not what was being used before the hospitalization. And although the pharmacist might occasionally see patients, that is not the norm.

Smith told MediCaring that, just three weeks into the program, he has seen some changes  being made. He offers services that the medical team often simply does not have time to address, such as helping patients to understand the need for a new medication and  helping them to reconcile pre-hospitalization medication routines with post-hospitalization routines.

Because the program was just launched in June, Smith says there has not really been an opportunity to see its effect on patients. He is not yet sure that the five-day follow-up call is the best timing. Smith also notes that the process enables him  to work more closely with physicians to develop medication management plans, providing doctors with information they welcome because it helps them to ensure that patients have workable routines.

According to Bartock, the pharmacy intervention helps to strengthen the program, and the case management it provides.  She says patients coming into the transitions program who have received the pharmacy intervention tend to be “in better shape than those who don’t have it.” In general, patients who are offered the intervention agree to participate in it. In just under three weeks, Smith says, he had seen approximately 20 patients.

Those interested in learning more about the Lifespan work can contact Mary Rose McBride at  585-244-8400, ext. 112 or  585-787-8376.

Key words: CCTP, care transitions, pharmacist, polypharmacy, frail elders, discharge planning

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Dec 122011
 

Groups looking to improve their medication reconciliation process, a critical element of improved care transitions, will find how-to guidance in a just-released Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality toolkit, Medications at Transitions and Clinical Handoffs (MATCH) Toolkit for Medication Reconciliation (http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/match/match.pdf). Based on an online toolkit (https://www.ahrq.gov/patient-safety/resources/match/index.html)  developed by Gary Noskin, M.D., and Kristine Gleason, R.Ph., the toolkit offers step-by-step information on how to launch and sustain a standardized medication reconciliation process.

Doing so is an essential element of many patient safety and quality initiatives, including those sponsored or supported by The Joint Commission and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Communication about medications is one of eight key areas covered by the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS), and is a critical element in standards related to meaningful use of electronic health records.

The toolkit authors explain that medication reconciliation involves a complex process of finding discrepancies between a patient’s current medications compared to those included in doctor admission, transfer or discharge orders. Such discrepancies need to be identified and discussed with the provider and patient; if necessary, orders must be revised. The process includes getting a medication list of prescription and non-prescription drugs, either when a patient is admitted or seen; considering these medications when ordering new medications or continuing treatment; verifying discrepancies; and providing an updated list and communicating its importance to the patient and caregiver.

Groups can use the toolkit to evaluate their existing processes and to identify and respond to gaps in them. It offers strategies for standardizing the process for physicians, nurses, and pharmacists, emphasizing the need for clearly defined roles and responsibilities. A standardized process can ensure that the most accurate and complete documentation is developed for each patient, that inpatient and home medications are reconciled, and that information is available to the entire health care team.  

The guide features seven sections covering topics that range from how to encourage facility leadership to support a medication reconciliation endeavor to how to recognize and manage high-risk situations.

Key words: medication reconciliation, discharge planning, care transitions, patient safety

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Dec 052011
 

Patients just discharged from the hospital urgently need rapid follow-up in the community. Dr. Joanne Lynn describes the care coordination needed among patients, community providers, hospitals, and other settings, and what’s needed to make it work.

Key words: rapid follow-up, care transitions, discharge planning, quality improvement, rehospitalization

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Oct 242011
 

Dr. Joanne Lynn describes Project RED (Re-Engineered Discharge), a program developed by Dr. Brian Jack and his colleagues at Boston University. It is designed to help hospitals to re-engineer their discharge processes, and offers some free online materials and guidance, as well as IT-enabled patient transition aids. You can read more about the details of the program on its website at: http://www.bu.edu/fammed/projectred/

And you can listen to Dr. Lynn describe it below.

Key words: Care transitions, discharge planning, health information technology, Project RED

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Oct 172011
 

Advanced practice nurses can be very effective in helping to bridge transitions from hospital to home. Dr. Joanne Lynn describes the Transitional Care Model, developed and tested by Dr. Mary Naylor and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania.  You can learn more about TCM from: https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/ncth/transitional-care-model/about-the-tcm/, and by watching the video below.

Keywords:  Transitional Care Model, Care Transitions, Joanne Lynn, Advanced Practice Nurses

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May 172011
 

Many improvement teams have real problems with measuring their progress – some never get around to measuring, and some never do anything else!  This presentation was set for the communities funded under the Beacon initiatives that are working to bring information exchange to care transitions, but you’ll find the pointers applicable to any intervention that your community might try.

You can download a PowerPoint presentation by clicking the following link:

caretransitionsmeasuresprimer (PowerPoint presentation)

Keywords: Beacon communities, care transitions, reasonable skeptic test, ten units of energy test, sure audience test, rehospitalization, best practices, Medicare, good care plans, near misses, targeting, nursing home residents, mentally ill, delirious, frail elderly, homeless, ESRD,  “revolving door” patients, case reviews, Care Transitions Measure, avoidable readmission, HCAHPS, discharge planning, denominator problems, numerator problems

 

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