A central utility model for care coordination promises lower costs and better outcomes for kids
HARTFORD – The Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) Board of Directors awarded the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center (CCMC), based in Hartford, a $97,089 one-year grant to fund the Hartford Care Coordination Collaborative to strengthen and stabilize care coordination services in the Hartford region through the design and implementation of a ‘shared resource, central utility’ model. The new project, “Innovation in Care Coordination: A Community Systems Approach,” aims to fill coordination gaps in the current fragmented system that often leaves vulnerable, at-risk children and their families, especially those of color, without effective linkages to the full spectrum of medical services and programs available in their communities.
The ‘central utility’ model promises efficiency in the delivery of appropriate health care and other services — ensuring that children and their families get coordinated care services, and in addition, will manage necessary transitions in care among providers and community agencies. Participating medical practices, agencies, and state departments will have the ability to contract out these activities to the centralized entity, providing costs savings and better support for the families and children they care for. This centralized, comprehensive coordinating entity will be supported by participating providers who will share resources and costs.
Fewer than 25 percent of Connecticut-based pediatric and family medicine practices report that they engage in formal care coordination activities, and almost half say that they coordinate care on an as-needed basis, without a formal mechanism, according to a 2008 University of Connecticut Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities survey on medical homes of primary care providers and families.
“Care coordination is so essential to ensure effective collaboration across the sectors of child health, early care and education, and family support and to enable children and their families to access critical, developmentally-enhancing programs and services,” said Paul Dworkin, MD, Executive Vice President for Community Child Health, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. “This grant will enable us to bring the ‘shared resource, central utility’ model of care coordination to scale in the Hartford region, and to demonstrate the efficacy and cost benefit of this model to inform statewide expansion.”
This grant will allow the collaborative to focus on:
- Increasing the sharing of financial and administrative resources across agencies and organizations in support of a ‘shared resource,’ central utility model.
- Increasing the number of primary care practices’ coordination capacity to become patient centered medical homes
- Expanding the model to the Title V Children with Special Healthcare Needs Programs in five regions
The model has shown favorable results in North Carolina’s Medicaid Program including improved utilization of primary care and decreased use of expensive, unnecessary services.
“We share with CT Health the commitment to system building in support of promoting children’s optimal healthy development,” said Dworkin.
OTHER GRANTS AWARDED
Center for Children’s Advocacy (Hartford)was awarded $150,000 over two years for general operating support to advocate for strategies that advance early identification and intervention among youth with mental and behavioral health needs, with a focus on urban children of color in the Hartford, Bridgeport, and New Haven areas.
Children’s Dental Health Project (Washington, DC) was awarded $25,000 to develop a “Choosing and Using Dental Benefits” training and resource materials for the state’s Navigators and In-Person Assisters to aid them in discussing the intricacies of pediatric and adult dental health benefits with consumers.
CT News Project (Hartford)was awarded a one year $100,000 one-year grant to report on health reform and health equity.
Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut (UHCF)(Meriden) was awarded a one year $50,000 grant contribution, also supported by UHCF and the Donaghue Foundation, to fund the Yale School of Public Health to conduct an independent evaluation of Access Health CT’s enrollment efforts as perceived by the consumers and the Navigators and In-Person Assisters that help consumers with community-based enrollment. Evaluation results will be used to inform Access Health CT and consumer advocates about ways to continuously improve the consumer experience.
CT HEALTH’S PRESIDENT’S DISCRETIONARY GRANTS
Clifford Beers Clinic (New Haven) was awarded a $10,000 grant in collaboration with Fair Haven Community Health Center and Yale New Haven Hospital to apply for the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation Award to advance their integrated model of primary care for children with serious behavioral health challenges.
Community Health Center, Inc. (CHC)(Middletown) was awarded a $25,000 grant to extend a previous study that evaluated the viability of implementing electronic consultations (e-consults). In addition, CHC will partner with UCONN to conduct an economic analysis of an eConsultation Program for Cardiology with a focus on improving access to specialty care for underserved patients.
Connecticut Center for Patient Safety (Redding) was awarded a $25,000 to disseminate and monitor findings from its research on the State’s All Payer Claims Database (APCD), as well as to monitor APCD development during the formative years.
Community Health Services, Inc. (Hartford, CT) was awarded $25,000 to support strategic planning.
Connecticut Multicultural Health Partnership (CMHP) (Willimantic), was awarded $8,100 through fiscal agent Eastern Area Health Education Centers, to provide training for CMHP’s leadership to improve their ability to address how racism plays in out in health inequities.
National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC) was awarded $25,000 to write and disseminate a summary of the Institute of Medicine’s Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities’ April 2013 Hartford convening of state and national health experts and leaders.
About the Connecticut Health Foundation
The Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) is the state’s largest independent health philanthropy dedicated to improving lives by changing health systems. Since it was established in July 1999, the foundation has supported innovative grant-making, public health policy research, technical assistance and convening to achieve its mission – to improve the health of the people of Connecticut. Over the past 12 years, CT Health has awarded grants totaling almost $51,000,000 million in 45 cities and towns throughout the state.
In April 2013, CT Health announced its five-year strategic plan to transition to expand health equity as a focus. For CT Health, health equity means helping more people gain access to better care, especially people of color. Better care includes physical, mental, and oral health.
For more information about the foundation, please visit www.cthealth.org or contact Senior Communications Officer Maryland Grier at Maryland@cthealth.org or 860.724.1580, ext. 21.
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