Medicare Coordinated Care Demonstration (MCCD)         Participant Newsletters ... here

This is the first large scale, prospective, randomized, controlled trial of care coordination among chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries. With over 2,500 patients randomized to date, 95 physician offices, and 7 hospitals participating, HQP 's model of advanced care management for chronically ill Medicare beneficiaries has been deployed across a mulit-county region of eastern Pennsylvania.

Health Quality Partners is one of only 2 of the original fifteen Medicare Coordinated Care Demonstration sites in the nation continuing under a two year program extension (through March 2010) by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  

 
In the Third Report to Congress on the Evaluation of the Medicare Coordinated Care Demonstration (June 3, 2008), CMS determined HQP’s model is “clearly cost neutral,” “sustainable” and “promising.” The treatment group “had 14 percent fewer hospitalizations than the control group (p=0.12)”. Medicare Part A and B expenditures among the treatment group were “14 percent lower than those of the control group, and the results were statistically significant (p=0.07)”. Regarding patient experience, “On several dimensions, Health Quality Partners received consistently higher ratings from their patients than the other programs.” Including “highest scoring on patient education and its high ranking on patient monitoring”.  

 
As described in a JAMA article earlier this year, significant impact on cost and utilization was observed in the subgroup of participants with higher complexity at risk for adverse outcomes ... click here for more.  The most recent analysis undertaken in collaboration with CMS, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., and the Medicare Chronic Care Practice Research Network further highlights the degree to which readily defined subgroups of patients experience greater near term benefit - including significant net health care savings. These as yet unpublished findings will help further refine and improve the effectiveness of our model.   

HQP has developed a patient-centered model of advanced care management that utilizes experienced nurses who work in close collaboration with primary care physicians. Based on the principal that solving problems important to patients and their caregivers will create opportunities for sustained effectiveness, the nurse care managers provide care transition support, gait and balance training to prevent falls, monitoring & prompting for adherence to preventive and chronic care guidelines, self management education, lifestyle behavior change programs, and support with medication management and adherence. The HQP program enrolls eligible patients with one or more of the following conditions: heart failure, coronary heart disease, diabetes, asthma, hypertension or hypercholesterolemia.