The adoption and spread of hospital care coordination activities under value-based programs

To examine the relationship between participation in value-based programs and care coordination activities.

Cross-sectional, observational study of 1648 US hospitals using the American Hospital Association (AHA)'s 2013 Survey of Care Systems. Value-based program participation included participation in either an accountable care organization (ACO) or a bundled payment program. We assessed adoption (whether a hospital was using any of a set of 12 care coordination activities in the AHA survey) and spread (in each hospital adopting care coordination activities, how extensively those activities were implemented throughout the hospital).

Ordinary least squares regression assessed associations between participation in an ACO or bundled payment program and the adoption and spread of 12 care coordination activities.

Hospitals adopted nearly two-thirds of the possible care coordination activities (mean [SD] = 7.9 [4.4] of 12). Among those hospitals adopting care coordination activities, there was a relatively moderate spread of these activities (mean = 2.5; range, 1 [minimally used] to 4 [used hospitalwide]). Hospital participation in an ACO was associated with the adoption of 3.07 more care coordination activities (P <.001), on average, and 0.16 more points on the scale of spread of care coordination activities (P <.001) compared with hospitals that were not participating in an ACO. Hospital participation in a bundled payment program was associated with the adoption of 1.84 more care coordination activities (b = 1.84; P <.001) but not greater spread (b = -0.04; P = .54).

Value-based programs such as ACOs appear to encourage the adoption and spread of care coordination activities by hospitals.