Health IT

Primary care, healthy lifestyles could have saved $30.8 billion in hospital care in 2006 — MedCity morning read, May 1

Better primary care and healthy lifestyles could have saved the U.S. health care system $30.8 billion in hospital costs in 2006. As many as 4.4 million hospital stays could have been prevented by better care at doctors’ offices, and if patients had adopted healthy lifestyles and actively managed their chronic illnesses.

By Mary Vanac on May 01, 2009

Better primary care and healthy lifestyles could have saved the U.S. health care system $30.8 billion in hospital costs in 2006, according to a report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Potentially preventable conditions, such as congestive heart failure and bacterial pneumonia, cost $1 out of every $10 spent at hospitals in that year, the agency reported.

As many as 4.4 million hospital stays could have been prevented by better care at doctors’ offices, and if patients had adopted healthy lifestyles and actively managed their chronic conditions.

Medicare was the top payer for potentially preventable conditions, paying the bill for one in five (18 percent) of  related hospital admissions, the agency said.

Meanwhile, hospitalization rates for potentially preventable conditions was highest among residents in poorer communities and lowest among residents in affluent communities.

This disparity largely reflects the successful management of diabetes — avoiding complications that required hospital stays — in richer neighborhoods. Hospital admissions for diabetes complications was 400 percent higher in the poorest communities than in the wealthiest ones, the agency said.

The Obama administration’s health care reform efforts have centered on containing skyrocketing costs. However, the administration and Congress have set aside $20.3 billion in federal stimulus dollars to encourage electronic health records and do comparative effectiveness research, according to Medscape Today.

sponsored content

A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma

A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.

By PurpleLab

Both of these efforts aim at improving the quality of health care.

More stories worth a read:

Topics