Peterson Center on Healthcare Teams with Brown University to Study Exemplary Care for High-Need Medicare Patients

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 31, 2017
CONTACT: Jorge Alday, 646-768-4013
jalday@petersonhealthcare.org

New Initiative Will Identify Hospital Systems Providing High-Quality, Cost-Effective Care With Aim of Replication and Broader Adoption

New York, NY—The Peterson Center on Healthcare announced a two-year $1.1 million grant for a new Brown University-based initiative designed to increase high-quality, cost-effective care for high-need Medicare patients requiring post-discharge care. The study will identify high-performing hospitals and their exemplary features, with the goal of fostering replication and adoption more broadly.

Medicare spending on post-acute care—rehabilitation or palliative services received after, or instead of, a stay in a hospital—surpasses more than $60 billion a year and has been one of the most rapidly growing areas of the Medicare program. Importantly, higher spending does not necessarily correlate with better quality as evidenced by data on avoidable hospital readmissions and burdensome transitions. Moreover, significant geographic variation in post-acute care spending suggests an opportunity to learn from high-performing hospital systems.

“Many of the most vulnerable patients are simply not getting the care they need after leaving the hospital, and the care they do receive can vary greatly both in terms of quality and cost,” said Jeffrey Selberg, Executive Director of the Peterson Center on Healthcare. “By understanding how high-performing providers deliver improved outcomes and lower costs, we can help others do the same for their patients.”

The initiative will occur in two phases. In phase one, Brown University School of Public Health researchers will analyze Medicare claims data to identify exemplary and average-performing hospital systems based on quality and cost measures following the transition of Medicare patients with complex needs into post-acute care facilities. In phase two, researchers will conduct site visits to identify features of care delivery that vary between high- and average-performing hospitals that could be adopted more broadly.

The work continues the Center’s ongoing efforts to identify and spread best practices for caring for high-need patients, which includes an initiative with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Bipartisan Policy Center to identify and validate high-performance solutions for high-need patients. In addition, the Center has partnered with four other foundations—The Commonwealth Fund, The John A. Hartford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The SCAN Foundation, and—to develop a Playbook with case studies and other resources to help health system leaders, insurers, and policymakers learn more about promising care approaches for high-need individuals.

For more information about the Peterson Center on Healthcare, visit petersonhealthcare.org. For more information about the Brown University School of Public Health, visit brown.edu/academics/public-health.

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About the Peterson Center on Healthcare
The Peterson Center on Healthcare is a non-profit organization dedicated to making higher quality, more affordable healthcare a reality for all Americans. The organization is working to transform U.S. healthcare into a high-performance system by finding innovative solutions that improve quality and lower costs, and accelerating their adoption on a national scale. Established by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the Center collaborates with stakeholders across the healthcare system and engages in grant-making, partnerships, and research.

About the Brown University School of Public Health
Through research, education, and public service, the Brown University School of Public Health strives to improve the health of individuals as well as populations. Working within all of Brown University, and the wider community, students benefit from substantial opportunities to gain and apply knowledge, while faculty members put their findings into practice to impact local, state, and national policy. Brown’s Center for Long-Term Care Quality & Innovation, which directs this project, specifically aims to test and spread interventions that improve care for older adults in a variety of care settings.