Older adults with multiple conditions benefit from CaRe-Align initiative

To help meet the complex needs of older patients with multiple chronic conditions, a new health care initiative called CaRe-Align, has been launched and will be led by Yale MacArthur Fellow Dr. Mary E. Tinetti and Dr. Caroline Blaum of New York University.

The John A. Hartford Foundation and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute joined forces to invest nearly $750,0000 in CaRe-Align. This health care model seeks to realign care around older patients’ self-identified health goals. The model also aims to improve health outcomes and lower care costs for this population, which is the major user of health care services in the country.

Medicare patients see an average of seven different physicians, including two primary care providers and five specialists, multiple times over the course of a year. This care is difficult to coordinate and generally has not focused on needs or concerns that matter most to patients. According to the Institute of Medicine, as much as 30% to 40% of all health care may be unnecessary or even harmful.

Tinetti and Blaum are experts in the care of older adults with multiple chronic conditions. Under their leadership, the initiative has convened a group of more than 50 older individuals, clinicians who care for such patients, family caregivers, and other health care stakeholders to gain their insights and perspectives on the new care model.

“We want to involve patients in their own care and facilitate communication and coordination between and among primary care and specialty care clinicians,” said Tinetti, the Gladys Philips Crofoot Professor of Medicine and Public Health and chief of the Section of Geriatrics at Yale School of Medicine.

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