The HomeSTAR™ Readmission Reduction Program

CareCentrix is leveraging our expertise in home health care management through our HomeSTAR program. The program name, HomeSTAR, embodies the program mission to provide Successful Transition And Recovery (STAR) within the Home setting. The program is designed to help health care plans and providers decrease avoidable hospital readmissions and other adverse medical events while improving patient satisfaction in their care.

Studies show that home health care is effective at reducing hospital lengths of stay, lowering costs and improving patient satisfaction. Research also suggests that if corrective measures are instituted earlier and more effectively, 20-30 percent of hospital readmissions are preventable and another 30 percent ameliorable. Consequently, preventable readmissions can be considered symptomatic of deficiencies in the delivery of care during hospitalization and/or in a member’s transition out of the in-patient setting to other sites of care. According to recent studies, readmissions occur more often with certain diagnoses and procedures, and are frequently caused by:

• Medication errors Patient lacks instruction on new prescription or has difficulty getting it filled, or the new prescription may interfere with existing medication.
• Poor discharge planning Patient receives little or no information on how to achieve a successful recovery and/or does not schedule a follow-up appointment with their physician.
• Inadequate arrangements Family members or caregivers are uninformed or unable to provide the necessary care for transitioning the patient from the hospital to the home.
• Poor communication Delay in providing discharge summary to patient’s physician or not using a “teach- back” method to ensure patient understands self-care.

CareCentrix can help mitigate these issues by coordinating appropriate and timely home health interventions through our HomeSTAR program. HomeSTAR has been developed with guidance from industry recognized leaders in the area of Hospital readmission prevention. The program utilizes proven strategies to identify and mitigate risk factors which may result in a hospital readmission. Studies reveal that improvements in discharge planning or new business models that apply interventions before, during and after discharge can improve member safety, and save the health care system upwards of $30-40 billion per year.

Through our HomeSTAR program, either CareCentrix or our health plan partner proactively identifies patients as high risk for adverse medical events which could lead to rehospitalization. CareCentrix will then enroll them into structured care plans that are delivered face-to-face in the home. CareCentrix leverages our expertise in home healthcare management to partner with our health care providers to identify members at risk for an adverse outcome, stratify that risk, and intervene to eliminate or reduce that risk. In doing so, we help lower hospital spending and deliver improved patient outcomes over current medical management programs.

With our HomeSTAR model and a nationwide network of home healthcare providers, CareCentrix is uniquely positioned to assist health care plans and providers with reducing hospital readmissions and adverse medical events through our new HomeSTAR program. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Elizabeth Keough at Elizabeth.Keough@carecentrix.com.