BrightSpring Health Services / December 2, 2020
As a goal of home care is to enable people to age in place at home, care management programs (programs that provide intermittent risk assessment, access to nurses and health care providers – without necessary simultaneous use of the skilled home health care benefit), may be an enabler of success of non-skilled home care programs. Home-based care management has been shown to reduce hospitalizations, rehospitalizations and skilled nursing facility placements and improve patient and caregiver satisfaction. In addition, studies have shown that chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries can benefit from nurse-led care management models.
A newly published study, “Hospitalization Rate among Recipients of Non-Skilled Home Care and the Feasibility of using a Novel Standardized Assessment to Reduce Hospitalizations” in Health Science Journal, by Dr. Shauen Howard, Vice President, Clinical Services and Innovation, and Dr. William Mills, Chief Medical Officer, aims to determine the hospitalization rate for chronically ill recipients of non-skilled home care, and to assess the feasibility of using a nurse-led standardized assessment care management program that is not dependent on simultaneous use of home health care.
Results of the study found home care recipients were hospitalized at an overall rate of 520 hospitalizations per 1,000 managed patients per year. Patients in the study group had lower mean rate of hospitalization (507 hospitalizations per 1,000 managed patients per year) compared to the control group (536 hospitalizations per 1,000 managed patients per year), but this difference was not statistically significant.
Read the full study here.
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