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Akron Children’s Hospital, based in Ohio, is in partnership with The nonprofit CareSource health plan will launch a responsible care organization on October 1.
Responsible care organizations are groups of clinicians, hospitals and other health care stakeholders who come together on a voluntary basis to provide coordinated care to a designated group of patients. Their objective is to improve the quality of care while reducing costs.
The new provider-led pediatric ACO, called Akron Children’s Health Collaborative, will focus on coordinating family-centered care for the approximately 100,000 children covered by Medicaid and enrolled in CareSource. Akron Children’s will assume responsibility for the management of care.
“Working in collaboration with our supplier partners allows us to combine the strengths of both organizations and to pursue our common goal of providing first-class health care to children in our communities, thus improving not only their health but also the quality of their lives. Dr. Dale J. Block, vice president and chief marketing officer of CareSource, said in a press release.
The ACO will also partner with federally qualified health centers, community pediatricians and family medicine providers to better integrate care for vulnerable children in the state. The focus will be on preventive care.
Akron Children’s Hospital joins the CareSource ACO network in Ohio, which includes Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Dayton Children’s Hospital, and Nationwide Children’s in Columbus.
“CareSource has successfully partnered with other children’s hospitals in Ohio, and Akron Children’s believes this model will also be a win-win for our patients and child care providers in Northeast Ohio. Said Grace Wakulchik, President and CEO of Akron Children’s. Hospital, in a press release.
Research on the effectiveness of pediatric ACOs in improving care, while sparse, shows mixed results.
Receiving consistent primary care through a pediatric ACO was linked to less use of inpatient resources and lower annual costs, according to a published study. in JAMA Pediatrics in 2015. But it has also been associated with an increase in the number of emergency department visits and outpatient clinics and the use of pharmaceuticals.
A more recent study, published in health services research in 2019, shows that elderly, blind and disabled children who received care through an ACO experienced quality improvement in some areas, such as visits from healthy adolescents, but not in other areas. others, such as home health services.
Photo: Gerasimov174, Getty Images
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