Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Receives Health Care Innovation Award from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
$9.6 million in funding to pilot Mobile Acute Care Team program to substitute acute care at home for traditional inpatient services
Yesterday, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an award of more than $9.6 million for the Mobile Acute Care Team (MACT) program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which provides acute care services at patients’ homes rather than at the hospital. Shifting health care services to the home eliminates the higher cost of a hospital admission.
Under the MACT program, pending final approval, teams will provide hospital-level care for specific diagnoses at the patient’s home along with post-acute care for up to 30 days. This care will be provided through a joint collaboration between physicians from the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program and multiple community-based service providers, including Visiting Nurse Service of New York. The program will involve physicians, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, paramedics, physical, occupational and speech therapists, care coaches, and home health aides.
In addition, ancillary services will be provided, such as community-based radiology, lab services (including point of care testing), durable medical equipment, pharmacy and infusion services, telemedicine, and interdisciplinary post-acute care services. The team will ensure a safe transition for the patient from the Mount Sinai care team back to community providers, and provide referrals to support services, as needed.
“This funding is enormously important, and will help lay the foundation for a key element of innovative, population health care management and cost savings, going forward,” said Kenneth L. Davis, MD, CEO and President, Mount Sinai Health System.
“The MACT program will challenge the notion that the delivery of high-quality care for certain conditions is limited only to hospitals and specialty-based outpatient centers, rather than through team-based, community care, which we believe can have equal or better outcomes,” said Theresa Soriano, MD, MPH, Executive Director of the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program, one of the largest of its kind in the country and a leader in home-based primary care. “We are excited and confident that this project will highlight the expertise of home-based care professionals of all disciplines in managing the acute medical conditions of our patients in the comfort and safety of their own homes.”
The MACT program is geared toward patients enrolled in Medicare and /or Medicaid, and who have been diagnosed with one of the following acute medical conditions: congestive heart failure; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD] exacerbation; cellulitis; community-acquired pneumonia; diabetes; deep venous thrombophlebitis [DVT]; and urinary tract infection [UTI]. These conditions, collectively, account for approximately 20 percent of Medicare discharges from hospitals. Mount Sinai physicians expect that approximately 25 percent of these patients could be cared for under MACT.
“We are proud that CMS recognizes the ability of MACT to transform the clinical and financial health care model for individuals with these acute illnesses, and that we, as a health system, are demonstrating the viability of home health care as a cost-effective means of improving health outcomes,” said Albert Siu, MD, the Ellen and Howard C. Katz Chairman's Chair of the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “We are confident that the strength of the newly enlarged Mount Sinai Health System played a large role in strengthening our application for this award.”
The award marks the second time in two years that the Mount Sinai Health System has received awards through the CMS Health Care Innovation Awards. In the first round, Mount Sinai was awarded more than $12.7 million to establish its Geriatric Emergency Department Innovations in Care Program, also known as GEDI WISE, with a goal similar to that of MACT: improving patient outcomes while producing cost savings to Medicare.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.
For more information, visit https://www.mountsinai.org or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.