March 2nd, 2009

Health Quality Partners is a small non-profit in Doylestown that coordinates care for chronically ill Medicare patients. This is one of 15 programs funded by Medicare to test if coordination could improve quality and costs to show success, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Rose Salvucci, 89 has been diagnosed with diabetes, heart failure and lupus and is one of 810 chronically ill Medicare patients Health Quality Partners is assisting enabling them to live at home. Salvucci’s health is tracked by computers and each week a nurse looks in on her to monitor her progress, then reporting to her doctor to double check Salvucci is receiving the attention she needs.

This coordination offers seniors close personal contact and tracking, group training and keeps the patient in close contact with doctors and hospitals. This program also focuses on the patients’ “care transition”; the time spent adjusting to home life after being in assisted care or a nursing home.

Health Quality Partners has seen significant reductions in cost; reducing health spending by 12 percent ($84 per patient per month).

David B. Nash, dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health in Philadelphia proposed; “Can such programs be scaled up to cover the hundreds of thousands of severely chronically ill patients in this country?”

Read more at the Philadelphia Inquirer