The evaluation of the use of perceived health status as a measure of care coordination efficacy

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has challenged providers of health care and ancillary services to coordinate service delivery, be accountable for service delivery and provide measured evidence of service delivery practices. The law proposes the structural use of Patient Centered Medical Homes (PCMH) and Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) Models in order to accomplish these goals. Patient case histories served as an impetus for this research study. The aims of this focus group research are to explore the definition of care coordination services; the role and function of care coordinators; how programs should be designed to meet the needs of patients; and perception of patients' health status after having participated in care coordination services. Care coordination was defined as actively sharing information across medians for the purpose of resource identification, ensuring provider choice, accessing necessary interventions and resource allocation. In this research study, health status was defined as a report of self-perceived health or the account of observed health by a relative or caregiver. Participants were recruited from Channel The Beacon, a disability care coordination organization, and participated in a focus group. Data was audio recorded and analyzed in areas of care coordination protocol, program design and outcome measures. The findings in this research study suggested that care coordination protocols should include coherent steps in assessing and addressing identified needs through formal planning and plan implementation processes. The findings suggested that the plan implementation process must be facilitated across disciplines and between organizations. It was concluded that when these mechanisms were employed health status was perceived as being good.