Hotspotting: 10 steps to help patients hospitalized most

As a rule, health care systems are designed to work for the typical 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 U.S. health care. So what’s being done to change this at the community level? One technique identifies these outliers individually, maps the constellation of pro blems they encounter, organizes resources around their needs and designs interventions to improve their care.
The approach, dubbed hotspotting, aims to fashion a system of multidisciplinary, coordinated care that in large part seeks to meet patient needs in by addressing nonmedical issues that affect health. These include housing, mental health, substance abuse and emotional support.It isn ’t a new concept, but it is being applied in new ways.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 who have multiple complex health conditions and use 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 also ims to broaden students ’ understan...

Source: AMA Wire - October 19, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Timothy Smith Source Type: news