Innovation Award Expected to Reduce WNY Health Care Costs

UB will use the Health Care Innovation Award to reduce unnecessary emergency department visits.

The project is one of only 26 nationwide that received support during the first round of grants funded by the Affordable Care Act.

Award recipients are expected to undertake initiatives that help deliver improved care at lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program.

UB’s award, which will create 13 new jobs, funds the selection and training of community health workers to conduct home visits with 2,300 Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries who have repeatedly used Western New York emergency departments for non-emergency care.

“There are good opportunities to provide medical care to patients who tend to come to the emergency department but who could just as easily receive medical care in another setting, including their homes,” says principal investigator G. Richard Braen, MD, chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine and associate dean of graduate medical education.

The grant was awarded to University Emergency Medical Services, an affiliate of UB’s Department of Emergency Medicine.

It is administered through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the Department of Health and Human Services.