United Hospital Fund Receives HEAL NY Grant to Focus on Overuse of Emergency Departments

Release Date: 02.10.2009
Contact: rdeluna@uhfnyc.org
Contact Phone: 212-494-0733

United Hospital Fund will receive a $198,000 award, under the Health Care Efficiency and Affordability Law for New Yorkers (HEAL NY), to analyze the overuse of hospital emergency departments for conditions that are often best treated in ambulatory care settings. New York State Governor David Paterson announced a total of 19 HEAL NY grants today, all focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of community health care systems.

The Fund's proposal includes two major components: refining the use of existing administrative datasets (SPARCS, Medicaid claims, and encounter data) to provide meaningful information on the nature and potential causes of emergency department utilization in New York City, and conducting an in-depth analysis of emergency department overuse in two low-income communities (the South Bronx and Southwest Brooklyn) chosen for their high level of service needs. This community-focused quantitative analysis will be supplemented with qualitative research (interviews and focus groups with patients).

To facilitate the community-based research, the Fund will partner with the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, Lutheran Family Health Centers, Metro Plus, Health Plus, and The New York Center for Community and Coalition Building.

This work builds on the Fund's earlier grant-making and research on this issue over two decades, including the 2008 report “Use of Hospital Emergency Departments in New York City: What Does It Tell Us about Access to Care?” That report identified wide disparities in emergency department visits per capita -- ranging from 13 visits per 100 residents in Northeast Queens to 80 visits in East Harlem. While significant differences among neighborhoods related to such factors as health status, insurance coverage, and physician supply would be expected, the magnitude of these variances was striking and not readily explained.

“This grant underscores and reaffirms the importance of understanding emergency room utilization as a key step to health care reform and the delivery of community-responsive health care,” said James R. Tallon, president of United Hospital Fund. “To create a higher-performing health care system, we need to make sure our patients are treated in the most appropriate setting. Not only will patients benefit from better care with greater continuity and coordination, but our health care providers will be better able to manage patient care if they can dedicate their all-too-limited resources most effectively.”

About the United Hospital Fund: The United Hospital Fund is a health services research and philanthropic organization whose mission is to shape positive change in health care for the people of New York.

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