Patterns of Morbidity Across the Lifespan: A Population Segmentation Framework for Classifying Health Care Needs for All Ages.

BACKGROUND: Classification systems to segment such patients into subgroups for purposes of care management and population analytics should balance administrative simplicity with clinical meaning and measurement precision. OBJECTIVE: To describe and empirically apply a new clinically relevant population segmentation framework applicable to all payers and all ages across the lifespan. RESEARCH DESIGN AND SUBJECTS: Cross-sectional analyses using insurance claims database for 3.31 Million commercially insured and 1.05 Million Medicaid enrollees under 65 years old; and 5.27 Million Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries aged 65 and older. MEASURES: The "Patient Need Groups" (PNGs) framework, we developed, classifies each person within the entire 0-100+ aged population into one of 11 mutually exclusive need-based categories. For each PNG segment, we documented a range of clinical and resource endpoints, including health care resource use, avoidable emergency department visits, hospitalizations, behavioral health conditions, and social need factors. RESULTS: The PNG categories included: (1) nonuser, (2) low-need child, (3) low-need adult, (4) low-complexity multimorbidity, (5) medium-complexity multimorbidity, (6) low-complexity pregnancy, (7) high-complexity pregnancy, (8) dominant psychiatric/behavioral condition, (9) dominant major chronic condition, (10) high-complexity multimorbidity, and (11) frailty. Each PNG evidenced a characteristic age-related trajectory across the full lifespan. In addition to offering clinically cogent groupings, large percentages (29%-62%) of patients in two pregnancy and high-complexity multimorbidity and frailty PNGs were in a high-risk subgroup (upper 10%) of potential future health care utilization. CONCLUSIONS: The PNG population segmentation approach represents a comprehensive measurement framework that captures and categorizes available electronic health care data to characterize individuals of all ages based on their needs.

Outcomes of Hospital at Home for Older Adults with and without High Levels of Social Support.

The evaluation of social support within hospital at home (HaH) programs has been limited. We performed a secondary analysis of a prospective cohort evaluation of 295 participants receiving HaH care and 212 patients undergoing traditional hospitalization from November of 2014 to August of 2017. We examined the confounding and moderating effects of instrumental and informational social support upon length of stay and 30-day rehospitalization, emergency department (ED) visit, and skilled nursing facility admission. Instrumental social support attenuated the effects of HaH upon any ED visit (base model: OR 0.61, p = 0.037; controlling for social support: OR 0.71, p = 0.15). The association of HaH with other outcomes remained unchanged. Interactions between HaH and informational or instrumental social support for all outcomes were not significant. Lack of high levels of social support had little effect on the positive outcomes of HaH care, suggesting similar benefits of HaH services for patients with lower levels of social support.

Alternative Strategies to Inpatient Hospitalization for Acute Medical Conditions: A Systematic Review.

Importance: Determining innovative approaches that better align health needs to the appropriate setting of care remains a key priority for the transformation of US health care; however, to our knowledge, no comprehensive assessment exists of alternative management strategies to hospital admission for acute medical conditions. Objective: To examine the effectiveness, safety, and cost of managing acute medical conditions in settings outside of a hospital inpatient unit. Evidence Review: MEDLINE, Scopus, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (January 1995 to February 2016) were searched for English-language systematic reviews that evaluated alternative management strategies to hospital admission. Two investigators extracted data independently on trial design, eligibility criteria, clinical outcomes, patient experience, and health care costs. The quality of each review was assessed using the revised AMSTAR tool (R-AMSTAR) and the strength of evidence from primary studies was graded according to the Oxford Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine. Findings: Twenty-five systematic reviews (representing 123 primary studies) met inclusion criteria. For outpatient management strategies, several acute medical conditions had no significant difference in mortality, disease-specific outcomes, or patient satisfaction compared with inpatient admission. For quick diagnostic units, the evidence was more limited but did demonstrate low mortality rates and high patient satisfaction. For hospital-at-home, a variety of acute medical conditions had mortality rates, disease-specific outcomes, and patient and caregiver satisfaction that were either improved or no different compared with inpatient admission. For observation units, several acute medical conditions were found to have no difference in mortality, a decreased length of stay, and improved patient satisfaction compared to inpatient admission; results for some conditions were more limited. Across all alternative management strategies, cost data were heterogeneous but showed near-universal savings when assessed. Conclusions and Relevance: For low-risk patients with a range of acute medical conditions, evidence suggests that alternative management strategies to inpatient care can achieve comparable clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction at lower costs. Further study and application of such opportunities for health system redesign is warranted.

The effect of disability on personal quality of primary care received by older adults.

UNLABELLED: PURPOSE. To quantify the association between disability and patient-rated personal quality of primary care among older adults. METHODS: Participants were community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries aged > or =65 enrolled in traditional Medicare or a Medicare health maintenance organisations. Functional status was evaluated twice (1998 and 1999) using nine activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental ADLs. Respondents were classified as having no, persistent, incident or previous disability based on the combination of their functional statuses at the two measurements. Self-reported personal quality of primary care was assessed using the Primary Care Assessment Survey in five domains. RESULTS. Compared to those with no disability, respondents with previous disability reported lower quality of care by 0.497 (p = 0.001) of a standard deviation, whereas persistent or incident disability was not associated with a difference in personal quality of care. CONCLUSIONS. Previous disability appears to have a negative effect on the personal quality of care while incident and persistent disability do not. Findings for previous and incident disability may suggest a lag in the perception of quality of care. A 'response shift' phenomenon may explain the lack of an observed association between persistent disability and personal quality of care.

Tube feeding in dementia: how incentives undermine health care quality and patient safety.

For nursing home residents with advanced dementia, very little evidence is available to show clinical benefit from enteral tube feeding. Although no randomized clinical trials have been done, considerable evidence from studies of weaker design strongly suggest that tube feeding does not reduce the risks of death, aspiration pneumonia, pressure ulcers, other infections, or poor functional outcome. Nationally, however, utilization is high and highly variable. System-wide incentives favor use of tube feeding, and may influence substitute decision-makers, bedside clinicians, gastroenterologists, and administrators regardless of patient preferences or putative medical indications. Underlying the widespread use of this marginally effective therapy is a basic misunderstanding about malnutrition and about aspiration pneumonia. The face value of tube feeding is strong indeed. In addition to the general faith in intervention, the impulse to "do something" when things are going poorly, financial incentives favor tube feeding for gastroenterologists, hospitals, and nursing homes. The desire to avoid regulatory sanctions, bad publicity, and liability exposure creates a further incentive for nursing homes to provide tube feeding. Rational, evidence-based use of tube feeding in advanced dementia will depend fundamentally on improved education. Reimbursement schemes require significant modification to limit the irrational use of tube feeding. Nursing home regulations based more securely on scientific evidence would likely reduce nonbeneficial tube feeding, as would evidence-based tort reform. Quality improvement initiatives could create positive incentives. Realigning incentives in these ways could, we believe, improve the quality of care, quality of life, and safety of these vulnerable individuals, likely with reduced costs of care.