CHICAGO, Oct. 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — The American Academy of Home Care Medicine (AAHCM), the leading professional organization for physicians, nurse practitioners and other providers of home-based primary care (HBPC), today announced the release of a digital toolkit of educational resources to help payers and providers understand how HBPC significantly improves quality and reduces costs for more than two million seriously ill and home-limited older adults. AAHCM made this announcement at its annual meeting in Chicago, which focused on empowering HBPC professionals to “Drive the Change to Value-Based Care.”
AAHCM’s new research-based educational initiative is part of a national awareness campaign funded by The John A. Hartford Foundation and West Health. It aims to remove barriers to HBPC programs, which provide appropriate primary and palliative care to vulnerable, functionally impaired patients who typically have complex health problems and are unable to visit physicians’ offices.
HBPC providers, including independent and hospital-based practices, work as interdisciplinary teams that include physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, social workers and nurses. Through preventive care support and timely interventions, they preempt avoidable, high-cost emergency department visits and hospitalizations and give vulnerable, under-served patient’s access to continuous care.
Multiple studies have shown that HBPC delivers significant cost savings and improves patient satisfaction; one program cut heart failure readmissions by 50%. As important, HBPC teams improve quality of life for patients and families by caring for them according to their preferences, in their own homes.
“These patients represent about 3 percent to 5 percent of Medicare patients, and HBPC can better support them and their families and also rein in healthcare costs,” said Mindy Fain, Past-President of the AAHCM and Principal Investigator for the project. “The Academy is working with the Home Centered Care Institute (HCCI) and other organizations to help payers and providers integrate this critical type of care into their standard array of benefits and services.”