Title: The Camden Coalition Care Management Program Improved Intermediate Care Coordination: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Source: Health Affairs
Authors: Amy Finkelstein, Joel C. Cantor, Jesse Gubb, Margaret Koller, Aaron Truchil, Ruohua Annetta Zhou, and Joseph Doyle
The Camden Coalition’s Core Model was developed to decrease repeat hospitalizations, improve the well-being of patients, and decrease health care costs for high-use, high-need patients. The program itself connected patients to medical care, governmental benefits, and community-based services. However, a randomized evaluation found that it failed to reduce hospital readmission rates. This study linked participants to Medicaid data to evaluate whether the faulty implementation of the program or issues with its theory of change could explain these results. Researchers found the latter explanation to be true such that care coordination alone is insufficient to decrease hospital readmissions for “patients with high rates of hospital admissions and medically and socially complex conditions.” The program now includes non-clinical support to supplement the existing model and account for these differences.
