Care coordination engagement patterns in long-term patients.

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Healthcare Management
• Patient Outcomes

Background:

• Healthcare systems utilize office-based care coordination for high-cost, high-need patients to reduce preventable costs.
• While short-term cost benefits are known, long-term patient engagement in care coordination programs remains understudied.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess care coordination engagement over time in patients enrolled for over two years.
• To determine the relationship between enrollment duration and engagement levels in an office-based care coordination program.

Main Methods:

• A 9-year longitudinal cohort study of adult patients enrolled in an office-based care coordination program.
• Linear regression was used to analyze the association between enrollment length and care coordination encounters, with comparisons between cohorts using t tests and ANOVA.

Main Results:

• Care coordination engagement increased linearly with time, averaging 0.2 additional encounters per patient annually.
• This pattern of increasing engagement was consistent across all five study cohorts, regardless of enrollment date.

Conclusions:

• Extended enrollment in office-based care coordination programs is associated with increased patient engagement.
• Care coordination services tend to escalate as patients remain longer within these programs, indicating potential for sustained value.