Excellence in Population Health A Successful Community-Based Care Transitions Program Model

Purpose/Objective: The Community-based Care Transitions Program (CCTP) defined a broad spectrum of interventions and services for elderly patients at high risk of hospital readmission. The purposes for a CCTP as developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are to improve transitions of beneficiaries from the inpatient hospital setting to other care settings, to improve quality of care, to reduce readmissions for high-risk beneficiaries, and to document measurable savings. The goals for this CCTP initiative were as follows: achievement of a 20% reduction in the 30-day all-cause readmission rate across all partner hospitals compared with baseline; reduction in the 30-day all-cause readmission rate among the high-risk cohort served; and achievement of the target volumes for full enrollment. Primary Practice Settings: The partnership included acute care institutions and community-based care organizations that have been involved with care transition programs for years and have a long history of working collaboratively to provide services to a largely low-income, underserved, and ethnically and racially diverse target population. Findings/Conclusions: The program successfully transitioned to full operation within the first year of inception. To date, the partnership of the acute hospital setting and the community-based organizations has reached and provided services to nearly 8,000 total individuals, surpassing our target enrollment goal. To date, the readmission rate has decreased to 12.5%, which is an 11% decline since inception of the program.