In Traditional Medicare, Modest Growth In The Home Care Workforce Largely Driven By Nurse Practitioners.

Little is known about the characteristics of the workforce providing home-based medical care for traditional (fee-for-service) Medicare beneficiaries. We found that the number of participating home care providers in traditional Medicare increased from about 14,100 in 2012 to around 16,600 in 2016. Approximately 4,000 providers joined or reentered that workforce annually, and 3,000 stopped or paused participation. The number of home visits that most participants provided each year remained below 200. Only 0.7 percent of physicians in Medicare provided fifty or more home visits annually, with little change over the course of five years. In contrast, the number of home-visiting nurse practitioners almost doubled, and the average number of home visits they made increased each year. Despite generally low overall participation of traditional Medicare providers in home-based care, the workforce has seen modest but steady growth, driven primarily by increasing nurse practitioner participation. Additional stimuli may be necessary to ensure workforce adequacy and stability.

Rapid Telehealth-Centered Response to COVID-19 Outbreaks in Postacute and Long-Term Care Facilities.

Purpose: The vulnerability of postacute and long-term care (PA/LTC) facility residents to COVID-19 has manifested across the world with increasing facility outbreaks associated with high hospitalization and mortality rates. Systematic protocols to guide telehealth-centered interventions in response to COVID-19 outbreaks have yet to be delineated. This article is intended to inform PA/LTC facilities and neighboring health care partners how to collaboratively utilize telehealth-centered strategies to improve outcomes in facility outbreaks. Methods: The University of Virginia rapidly developed a multidisciplinary telehealth-centered COVID-19 facility outbreak strategy in response to a LTC facility outbreak in which 41 (out of 48) facility residents and 7 staff members tested positive. This strategy focused on supporting the facility team remotely using rapidly deployed technologic solutions. Goals included (1) early identification of patients who need their care escalated, (2) monitoring and treating patients deemed safe to remain in the facility, (3) care coordination to facilitate bidirectional transfers between the skilled nursing facility (SNF) and hospital, and (4) daily facility needs assessment related to technology, infection control, and staff well-being. To achieve these goals, a standardized approach centered on daily multidisciplinary virtual rounds and telemedicine consultation was provided. Results: Over a month since the outbreak began, 18 out of 48 (38%) facility residents required hospitalization and 6 (12.5%) died. Eleven facility residents have since returned back to the SNF after recovering from their hospitalization. No staff required hospitalization. Conclusions: Interventions that reduce hospitalizations and mortality are a critical need during the COVID-19 pandemic. The mortality and hospitalization rates seen in this PA/LTC facility outbreak are significantly lower than has been documented in other facility outbreaks. Our multidisciplinary approach centered on telemedicine should be considered as other PA/LTC facilities partner with neighboring health care systems in responding to COVID-19 outbreaks. We have begun replicating these services to additional PA/LTC facilities facing COVID-19 outbreaks.

COVID-19 Collaborative Model for an Academic Hospital and Long-Term Care Facilities.

The COVID-19 pandemic is devastating post-acute and long-term care (PA/LTC). As geriatricians practicing in PA/LTC and a regional academic medical center, we created this program for collaboration between academic medical centers and regional PA/LTC facilities. The mission of the Geriatric Engagement and Resource Integration in Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Facilities (GERI-PaL) program is to support optimal care of residents in PA/LTC facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are 5 main components of our program: (1) Project ECHO; (2) nursing liaisons; (3) infection advisory consultation; (4) telemedicine consultation; and (5) resident social contact remote connections. Implementation of this program has had positive response from our local PA/LTC facilities. A key component of our program is our interprofessional team, which includes physicians and nursing, emergency response, and public health experts. With diverse professional backgrounds, our team members have created a new model for academic medical centers to collaborate with local PA/LTC facilities.

Core Principles to Improve Primary Care Quality Management.

Quality management in American health care is in crisis. Performance measurement in its current form is costly, redundant, and labyrinthine. Increasingly, its contribution to achieving the Quadruple Aim is under close examination, especially in the domain of primary care services, where the burden of measurement is heaviest. This article assesses the state of quality management in primary care in the United States, particularly the 2015 Medicare Access and Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, in comparative perspective, drawing lessons from the Quality and Outcomes Framework in the United Kingdom. The health care delivery function specific to primary care is pivotal to crossing the quality chasm, yet prior efforts to improve the quality of this function have failed more often than succeeded. These failures are the result of quality programs unguided by core principles of primary care. Quality management in primary care requires a more disciplined approach, adherent to 4 foundational principles: optimizing holistic patient and population health; harnessing the Quadruple Aim as a dynamic whole; applying measurements as tools for quality, not outcomes of quality; and prioritizing therapeutic relationships. These principles serve as the foundation for a bridge to high-functioning primary care that will lead American health care closer to the Quadruple Aim.