Health Affairs Special Issue on Delivery System Reform Features JAHF Grantees
This month's special theme issue of Health Affairs on delivery system innovation features several articles on projects connected to The John A. Hartford Foundation.
Two in particular are the OPTIMISTIC nursing home program and the Y-USA Diabetes Prevention Program:
- Nursing home residents in OPTIMISTIC facilities experienced a 25% reduction in all-cause hospitalizations and a 40% reduction in potentially avoidable hospitalizations in 2015, compared to control group facilities, states the evaluation report. Indiana University’s OPTIMISTIC program (an acronym for "Optimizing Patient Transfers, Impacting Medical Quality and Improving Symptoms: Transforming Institutional Care") received funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation. The Health Affairs paper, Initiative To Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations Among Nursing Facility Residents Shows Promising Results, by Melvin J. Ingber et al, released at a Health Affairs briefing on March 7, is the first journal publication from the CMS external evaluator RTI. A full report detailing results from all the interviews was also released.
- Impact Of The YMCA Of The USA Diabetes Prevention Program On Medicare Spending And Utilization, by Maria L. Alva et al, found total decreases in inpatient admissions and emergency department (ED) visits were significant, with nine fewer inpatient stays and nine fewer ED visits per 1,000 participants per quarter. The evaluation was also undertaken by CMS external evaluator RTI. Y-USA receives our funding to enhance its capacity to implement the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) with a greater focus on older adults.
To read the Health Affairs OPTIMISTIC paper, click here.
To read Regenstrief Institute's press release on OPTIMISTIC, click here.
To read the full RTI Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations among Nursing Facility Residents report, click here.
To read the Health Affairs Y-USA paper, click here.
For the Y-USA's Diabetes Prevention Program data graphic, click here.
To learn more about the Health Affairs March 7 briefing, click here.
