CMS announces Care Transitions Project
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced it will soon be launching a project aimed at reducing preventable rehospitalizations. This announcement comes just weeks after The New England Journal of Medicine published a study showing that 20% of Medicare patients were readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of being discharged, and 30% were readmitted within three months. You can find an earlier blog posting about this study here.
The effort, called the Care Transitions Project, will use 14 pilot cities to set up programs that improve healthcare processes so that patients, families/providers of care, and teams of caregivers have what they need to reduce the likelihood of rehospitalization.
“Rather than focusing on one global problem and trying to apply a one-size-fits-all solution across the country, Care Transitions experts will look in their own backyards to learn why hospital readmissions occur locally and how patients transition between health care settings,” said Barry M. Straube, MD, chief medical officer for CMS and director of its Office of Clinical Standards & Quality in a press release. “Based on this community-level knowledge, Care Transitions teams will design customized solutions that address the underlying local drivers of re-admissions.”
Each of the following 14 locations will be led by a state Quality Improvement Organization:
- Providence, RI
- Upper Capitol Region, NY
- Western PA
- Southwestern NJ
- Metro Atlanta East, GA
- Miami, FL
- Tuscaloosa, AL
- Evansville, IN
- Greater Lansing Area, MI
- Omaha, NE
- Baton Rouge, LA
- North West Denver, CO
- Harlingen, TX
- Whatcom County, WA
To find out more about the Care Transitions Project, click here.
About the Author: Heather Comak is a Managing Editor at HCPro, Inc., where she is the editor of the monthly publication Briefings on Patient Safety, as well as patient safety-related books and audio conferences. She is also is the Assistant Director of the Association for Healthcare Accreditation Professionals.
Contact Heather by e-mailing hcomak@hcpro.com
