PICO plans to expand health care pilot project
It’s been almost a year since a nurse practitioner's office opened at Northgate II, a low-income, high-rise housing community in Camden –giving improved health care access to residents of one of the city’s most medically-expensive buildings.
The Northgate II clinic is a result of a partnership between Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers and Camden Churches Organized for People (CCOP).
PICO Network recently presented a proposal to the Health Care Innovation Challenge requesting funding to replicate the success of Northgate II in four cities - Allentown, Pa., Aurora, Colo., Kansas City, Mo., and San Diego, Calif. PICO federations in those cities plan to work with local health-care safety net providers to implement the programs.
The idea for the Northgate II clinic came after Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers looked into the costs and geographic clustering of the city's sickest patients and found that head colds were the primary reason that people in Camden went to the emergency room. CCOP leaders interviewed the residents and learned that they often had no other source for medical treatment. Yet the repeated visits to the emergency room generated more than $17 million in hospital charges over six years.
The proposed PICO projects would support nearly 3,000 high-cost, high-need Medicaid, Medicare, and uninsured patients across the five PICO communities, leading to projected savings of $62.3 million over three years. The savings could be reinvested in health care programs in low –income communities.
The Health Care Innovation Challenge funds projects across the country that test creative ways to deliver high quality medical care and save money. The program is coordinated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and funded by the Affordable Care Act. Awards will be announced in March and are expected to range from approximately $1 million to $30 million over three years.
According to the HHS website, awards will be granted to applicants who will implement the most compelling new ideas to deliver better health, improved care and lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, particularly those with the highest health-care needs.