Study Results from University of California Provide New Insights into Managed Care (The Effect of Implementing a Care Coordination Program on Team…

Study Results from University of California Provide New Insights into Managed Care (The Effect of Implementing a Care Coordination Program on Team Dynamics and the Patient Experience)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Investigators publish new report on Managed Care. According to news originating from Los Angeles, California, by VerticalNews correspondents, research stated, "Care coordination programs are frequently implemented in the redesign of primary care systems, focused on improving patient outcomes and reducing utilization. However, redesign can be disruptive, affect patient experiences, and undermine elements in the patient-centered medical home, such as team-based care."

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of California, "Case-controlled study with difference-indifferences (DID) and cross-sectional analyses. The phased implementation of a care coordination program permitted evaluation of a natural experiment to compare measures of patient experience and teamwork in practices with and without care coordinators. Patient experience scores were compared before and after the introduction of care coordinators, using DID analyses. Cross-sectional data were used to compare teamwork, based on the relational coordination survey, and physician-perceived barriers to coordinated care between clinics with and without care coordinators. We evaluated survey responses from 459 staff and physicians and 13,441 patients in 26 primary care practices. Practices with care coordinators did not have significantly different relational coordination scores compared with practices without care coordinators, and physicians in these practices did not report reduced barriers to coordinated care. After implementation of the program, patients in practices with care coordinators reported a more positive experience with staff over time (DID, 2.6 percentage points; P = .0009)."

According to the news editors, the research concluded: "A flexible program that incorporates care coordinators into the existing care team was minimally disruptive to existing team dynamics, and the embedded care coordinators were associated with a small increase in patient ratings that reflected a more positive experience with staff."

For more information on this research see: The Effect of Implementing a Care Coordination Program on Team Dynamics and the Patient Experience. American Journal of Managed Care, 2017;23(8):494-500,88-89. American Journal of Managed Care can be contacted at: Managed Care & Healthcare Communications Llc, 666 Plainsboro Rd, Ste 300, Plainsboro, NJ 08536, USA.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from P. Di Capua, University of California, David Geffen Sch Med, Los Angeles, CA 90095, United States. Additional authors for this research include R. Clarke, C.H. Tseng, H. Wilhalme, R. Sednew, K.M. McDonald, S.A. Skootsky and N. Wenger.

Keywords for this news article include: Los Angeles, California, United States, North and Central America, Managed Care, University of California.

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