Rep. Lewis Applauds Atlanta Coalition Grant to Stabilize Care Transitions

Nov 18, 2011
Washington, DC—Today the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) announced the first group of grants to fund a health care demonstration project which offers the federal government an opportunity to discover better ways to secure safe and healthy transitions for patients moving from one health care facility to another.  The program is a part of the Affordable Health Care Act, called the Community-Based Care Transition Program, and CMS was granted $500 million in total funding from 2011 through 2015 to “improve care transitions for high risk Medicare patients.”

            When patients with serious and complex illnesses are transferred from one health care provider setting to another, such as from a hospital to a nursing home, they often experience complications.  CMS reports that “nearly one in five Medicare patients discharged from the hospital—approximately 2.6 million seniors—is readmitted within 30 days at a cover of over $26 billion every year.”  This program seeks to discover the reason for this frequent relapse and compile best practices to strengthen the care of Medicare patients.  Resolving this challenge will help make health care “safer, more reliable, and less costly for all Americans.”

            “I am not surprised that Atlanta was once again singled out among the first picked institutions to participate in this important program,” said Rep. John Lewis. “Atlanta is home to some of the best health care institutions and medical research facilities in this country.  I applaud the strategic development of the Atlanta Community- Based Care Transitions Program, a collaborative partnership serving ten counties in the Atlanta region, which includes Emory University Hospital Mid-town, Gwinnett Medical Center, Piedmont Hospital, Southern Regional Hospital, WellStar Cobb Hospital, WellStar Kennestone Hospital.

“Even though the Affordable Healthcare Act has been vilified, this program represents some of the deeply beneficial aspects of the bill does. The findings of this community-based program have the potential to assist health care institutions around the country and throughout the world.  They have the power to contribute to the longevity, comfort and care of the elderly, the sick and the disabled, which is a worthwhile interests of the people”

For more details about the grant, please see the attached fact sheet and links below.                                                       

The first site selections for the CCTP are available at the link below: http://www.cms.gov/DemoProjectsEvalRpts/downloads/CCTP_FirstSiteSelections.pdf

For more information, please see the attached factsheet and visit: http://www.healthcare.gov/partnershipforpatients or http://go.cms.gov/caretransitions.