Dive Brief:
- As patients continue to use the ED as a primary care office, a new study from Accenture reveals that non-clinical "patient navigators" can help significantly reduce the overuse of emergency departments and even play a role in slowing readmissions.
- The pilot program, initiated by the Highmark Foundation and Accenture, was executed at three hospitals in Western Pennsylvania, including St. Vincent Health System in Erie, Allegheny Valley in Pittsburgh and Jameson Health System in New Castle. The program hired and trained non-clinical patient navigators to utilize healthcare services, the study background stated.
- "Patient navigation not only creates a one-to-one connection for the patient, it serves as a low-cost investment that delivers significant value to care delivery," said David Balderson, who leads patient navigation at Accenture.
Dive Insight:
There is a reason why medical-related TV shows tend to focus on the emergency departments: It's where most of the action and almost all of the drama in a hospital takes place. Hospitals hoped that getting more patients into insurance programs via the ACA would reduce ED visits, but insurance doesn't address the cultural issues behind those visits.
This study, however, addresses the culture head-on by placing a patient advocate who has no other role except to help steer the patient to the place where they will receive the most appropriate care. As the study related, hiring and training these non-clinical staffers is a minimal investment compared to the cost of overutilization in emergency departments.
It's a move that makes sense, and the study confirmed that it worked. Other providers in the industry would do well to take note and evaluate how the same approach might work in their hospitals. It would go a long way toward getting habitual ED visitors out of that bad habit and placing them on a path toward better, and more efficient, patient care.
