A recent University of Chicago Medicine program will analyze whether an updated version of the traditional general practitioner can lessen expenses together with improving care for these patients with the help of a $6.1 million grant. Patients who are repeatedly hospitalized account for an uneven amount of health care expenditure in the United States.

In this new model, funded by a Health Care Innovation Award from the Center for Medicare insurance & Medicaid Innovation, multidisciplinary teams led by a comprehensive care physician (CCP) will care for patients in both outpatient and inpatient settings. By bettering an individual’s care in a consistent manner after a hospital stay and strengthening the bond between doctor and patient, the model plans to provide better care at affordable cost.  This model is based on 15 years of research by David Meltzer, MD, PhD, associate professor and chief of the Section of Hospital Medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine and colleagues on the varying medical work force in the United States. Health care providers increasingly rely on specialized physicians known as hospitalists to care for inpatients, while primary care doctors are less likely to see their patients while they are hospitalized. The proposal is focused on long-stay nursing facility residents who are enrolled in the Medicare Plan and Medicaid programs, with the aim of reducing preventable inpatient hospitalizations.

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