Catmaran, Health New England collaboration reduces hospital readmissions

Catamaran Corp. and Health New England Inc. (HNE) recently announced one-year results from Catamaran’s Hospital Transition Program, revealing that the program has reduced HNE’s hospital readmission rates and increased medication adherence.

HNE and Catamaran worked together on a program that improved data sharing and communication between the health plan, hospital and PBM, therefore enabling a more diligent level of education, monitoring and intervention where suitable with patients once released to the ambulatory setting.

Before implementing Catamaran's Hospital Transition Program, HNE evaluated its commercial members that were re-admitted to a hospital within 30 days of discharge and discovered 30 percent of those patients were taking more than six chronic medications simultaneously.

One year after implementing the program, 30-day same-cause readmissions in the intervention group were more than 70 percent below that of an equally matched control group, while all-cause readmissions decreased by more than 50 percent.

"After examining readmission rates and the number of potentially avoidable readmissions due to medication discrepancies, we began brainstorming innovative ways to utilize technology and the expertise of pharmacists to really make a difference here," Health New England Director of Pharmacy Gary Tereso said. "By implementing a concentrated program that provided a full reconciliation of medications for patients post-discharge, as well as patient counseling and monitoring, we improved health outcomes and quality of life for our members."