Comprehensive Care for Chronically Ill Children works

High-risk, chronically ill children are often in and out of hospitals, emergency departments and intensive care units. A new study examined if providing comprehensive care in a single “medical home” setting, as a way of coordinating care among multiple healthcare providers, could help keep these children out of the hospital and control health care costs. “High risk chronically ill children are a unique population. We need to treat them also as unique.” Dr. Ricardo Mosquera and co-authors examined the outcomes for two groups of high-risk chronically ill children. One group received care at the comprehensive medical home. The other group received usual care from their regular medical providers. Both groups were followed for about two and a half years. “Children who received the primary care in our comprehensive clinic had 40 to 60% less hospitalizations, ER visits, ICU admissions. The cost for a patient per year in our comprehensive clinic is ten thousand dollars less than the traditional care.” The study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.