Hotspotting: 10 steps to help patients who are hospitalized most

As a rule, health care systems are designed to work for the average patient. Yet it ’s well-known that a small proportion of patients with complex, hard-to-manage needs and chronic conditions drives much of the cost in American health care. So what’s being done to change this at the community level? One technique identifies these outliers individually, maps the constellation of problems they encounter, organizes resources around their needs and designs interventions to improve their care.
Hotspotting is a movement toward a system of multi-disciplinary, coordinated care that seeks to meet patient needs in large part by addressing non-medical issues that affect health, including housing, mental health, substance abuse and emotional support.It isn ’t a new concept, but it ’s getting new applications.Now part of medical school curricula
Beginning in 2014, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) joined with the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers and Primary Care Progress to launch theInterprofessional Student Hotspotting Learning Collaborative, in which participants learn from hotspotting pioneers how to identify and help patients with multiple complex health conditions who utilize care frequently.
The 2016-2017 cohort features 31 teams of students at 27 schools across the country, including several member schools in the AMA ’sAccelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium. The program aims to broaden not only students ’ understanding of the r...

Source: AMA Wire - October 14, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Timothy Smith Source Type: news