The HHS Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has awarded Cedars-Sinai Medical Center LA plus a consortium of five University of California medical schools $9.9 million to determine the efficacy of using wireless and telephone care management to reduce hospital readmissions for heart failure patients.
UCLA is leading the consortium in the three-year grant for the study called, "Variations in Care: Comparing Heart Failure Care Transition Intervention Effects." The funding comes from the HHS program: Clinical and Health Outcomes Initiative in Comparative Effectiveness (CHOICE).
The study will determine how standard practice compares to transitioning patients from inpatient to outpatient care via telephone or via wireless remote monitors and telephone. The researchers aim to improve quality while reducing costs.
"Heart failure patients have high rates of hospital readmissions, and a critical window for preventing readmissions is as the patient transitions from the inpatient to outpatient setting," Dr. Michael Ong, assistant professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the grant's principal investigator stated in a press release.
"This funding is critical if we're to learn how to reinvent health care in the United States," Dr. Tom Rosenthal, chief medical officer for Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center stated in the release. "Our goal is to improve quality and reduce cost of care and, most importantly, to identify approaches that are applicable in every community, not only large academic centers."
"UC is committed to developing innovations and a new paradigm of health care delivery that creates a culture of deliberate improvement." Dr. John Stobo, UC senior vice president for health sciences and services.
