Abstract
Residents of low income neighborhoods disproportionately experience poor health, and many have unmet social needs. Clinical trials have shown the efficacy of Community Health Worker (CHW) programs in improving outcomes for a variety of health conditions. An important next step is developing and evaluating financially sustainable CHW program models in real-life settings. This program evaluation examines health care utilization among participants in a geographically targeted program led by salaried CHWs from three Medicaid health plans. Beneficiaries who reside in the Cody Rouge neighborhood of Detroit and had more than 3 Emergency Department (ED) visits or at least 1 ambulatory care-sensitive hospitalization in the prior 12 months are eligible for the program. Health plan CHWs assigned to the program reach out to eligible beneficiaries to provide an assessment; link them to resources; and provide follow-up. At 12-month follow up, claims data on ED visits, ambulatory care-sensitive hospitalizations, primary care visits, and related costs will be compared between beneficiaries who participated and eligible beneficiaries randomized to receive usual outreach. We hypothesize that patients enrolled in the CHW intervention will experience a reduction in acute care usage resulting in cost savings compared to those receiving usual health plan outreach. This study is among the first to evaluate the impact on health care utilization of augmented services delivered by health plan CHWs for high-utilizing health plan members as part of a health plan-community-academic partnership. This study will provide important information on CHW program sustainability and provide insights into effective implementation of such programs. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT03924713.