OPTIMISTIC is Going Statewide
Indiana University's OPTIMISTIC study, an acronym for "Optimizing Patient Transfers, Impacting Medical Quality and Improving Symptoms: Transforming Institutional Care", has added an additional 25 facilities across Indiana as it expands its efforts to improve the health and health care of long-term nursing home residents.
OPTIMISTIC is one of six projects nationwide participating in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Center for Innovations-funded nursing home demonstration project "Initiative to Reduce Avoidable Hospitalizations among Nursing Facility Residents". It received funding from The John A. Hartford Foundation to assist in the preparation for dissemination of OPTIMISTIC's care model providing medical, transitional, and palliative care for older adults residing in nursing homes.
Over the next four years, the 19 central Indiana nursing homes that participated in OPTIMISTIC's initial phase plus the 25 additional nursing homes from across the state are implementing a new CMS payment model which incentivizes nursing facilities, as well as their medical staffs, to provide higher levels of care on site rather than sending residents to the hospital.
