Jeff Braemer of Morristown, president of the Grotta Fund for Senior Care, has announced that three area agencies have received a total of $298,000 in grants from the Grotta Fund to participate in a Care Transitions Initiative to improve transitions between settings of care and reduce unnecessary re-hospitalizations.
Current estimates predict that preventing avoidable hospitalizations nationally could save Medicare alone more than $17 billion.
The agencies are:
Redeemer Home Care, NJ North in partnership with Jewish Family Service of Central New Jersey and Trinitas Regional Medical Center
$100,000 for its Collaboration of Acute and Long-Term Home Care Agencies to Prevent Re-Hospitalizations program.
Newark Beth Israel Medical Center Foundation in partnership with Home Care Services, Saint Barnabas Health Care LINK, Patient Concierge, Saint Barnabas Health Care System, and Chancellor Specialty Care Center
$ 98,000 for the Newark Beth Israel Medical Center CHF Transitions project
Saint Clare’s Foundation in partnership with Saint Clare’s Medical Center, Visiting Nurses Association of Saint Clare’s, Visiting Nurses Association of Northern NJ, Care One at Morris
$100,000 for Saint Clare’s Cares: Caring Transitions for Elderly Heart Failure and Diabetes Patients program.
According to the July 25, 2011, issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, 30-day all-cause readmission rates for patients 65 years or older in the United States generally range from 20–25 percent, leaving much room for improvement. Rates are significantly higher for seniors with congestive heart failure, diabetes, and chronic obstructive lung disease.
During the one-year grant period, each grantee will implement one of three national evidence-based models of care transitions that prescribe patient-level and systems-level changes. The models offer proven tools for families, caregivers, professionals, and community agencies, detailed discharge procedures, improved methods for medication reconciliations, facilitated access to community resources, and an interactive patient education technique, “teach-back.”
A key element in helping seniors safely transition between settings of care is in-person, telephonic, and practice-based interaction assisted by a care transitions coach or navigator prior to and following hospital discharge.
“The Grotta Fund’s advisory council was very pleased with the response generated by our RFP,” said Braemer. “We began with a desire to spur programs that would address the issue of care transition and then organized a seminar that drew national experts as speakers with over 100 attendees. We look forward to the success of these three programs.”
“Each grantee is expected to achieve multiple impacts including better care coordination, lower costs, improved communications, and higher quality, person-centered care. In addition, seniors will become better skilled at taking an active role in their care transitions,” added Renie Carniol, director of the Grotta Fund.
The Grotta Fund for Senior Care is an advisory council of the Whippany-based Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest NJ (JCF), dedicated to positively impacting the lives of seniors in Essex, Union and Morris counties. Since becoming a JCF fund in 2003, $3 million in grants has been awarded to non-profit organizations that provide critical health, social service, home safety, and socialization programs and services.
Further information regarding the Grotta Fund for Senior Care and the Care Transitions grant funding is available by contacting Renie Carniol at (973) 929-3097 or rcarniol@ujcnj.org.
