In a rare collaboration between the region’s dominant health insurer and hospital network, paramedics will be trained to care for people with chronic diseases in their homes as part of an ambitious plan to curb unnecessary hospitalizations and better coordinate medical care.
Care will be provided to residents of the city and three dozen neighboring communities as part of a two-year $600,000 pilot, which is expected to begin in mid-2013. The University of Pittsburgh’s Congress of Neighboring Communities, Highmark, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Allegheny County EMS Council and Center for Emergency Medicine of Western Pennsylvania Inc. are the sponsors.
“EMS services transcend municipal borders and we are very excited that we could bring together our funding partners, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and UPMC, in this unique partnership that will greatly benefit our region,” CONNECT Executive Director Kathy Risko said in a prepared statement.
EMS agencies, hospital emergency departments, Highmark and UPMC will refer patients to the program and they will be given a nonemergency number for questions or concerns about health care, providing an option to making medically unnecessary emergency calls. Community paramedics will help determine the kind of care that’s needed in collaboration with patients’ primary care doctors and a variety of social service agencies.
CONNECT was begun in 2009 by the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs’ Center for Metropolitan Studies.
Participation by Highmark and UPMC in a joint venture is rare because the insurance and hospital giants have been at odds for some time over health care costs, provider contracts and other issues, which have spilled over into county and federal court.