Our newest initiative, the Whatcom IMPACT Project, hopes to reduce re-admissions to the hospital for patients who have Medicare by helping people transition from the hospital to the home or other care setting.

This project is funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), who selected Whatcom County to participate in the Community-based Care Transitions Program (CCTP). The Whatcom IMPACT Project (Improving Care Transitions) will assist Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries as they transition from the hospital in-patient setting to the home or other care sites. The aims are to empower patients and their family members to understand their health so they can actively maintain and manage it and to reduce preventable hospital re-admissions.

The CCTP is an initiative of the Partnership for Patients, a nationwide public-private partnership launched in April 2011 that aims to cut preventable errors in hospitals by 40 percent and reduce preventable hospital re-admissions by 20 percent over a three-year period. CCTP’s goals are to reduce hospital re-admissions, test sustainable funding streams for care transition services, maintain or improve quality of care, and document measurable savings to the Medicare program.