Friday, April 26, 2024
4/26/2024
Project Title: NYC Health + Hospitals Sickle Cell Hydroxyurea Prescribing Project Applicant Organization Name: New York City Health + Hospitals / Queens Address: 82-68 164th Street, Jamaica, NY 11432 Project Director Name: Dr. Jean-Bernard Poulard Contact Phone Number: 718-883-4645 Email Address: poulardj@nychhc.org Grant Program Funds Requested in the Application: $2,500,000 NYC Health + Hospitals, as one of the largest providers of sickle cell care in the nation, seeks to improve our care of people with sickle cell disease (SCD) by increasing their use of hydroxyurea. People with SCD often suffer from crippling pain, infection, and in some cases, stroke and other serious health problems reducing their quality of life and life expectancy. Hydroxyurea is a disease-modifying drug that can decrease complications, improve quality of life, increase life expectancy, and decrease healthcare costs; however, it is underutilized. Reasons include patient concerns, physician knowledge, and a health care system not designed to support its use. We have partnered with the NYS Department of Health to test the hypothesis that physician incentives can drive the needed system change to increase hydroxyurea use in our patient population. Using a quality improvement learning collaborative and the Project ECHO quality improvement model to leverage telementoring across our seven NYS designated hemoglobinopathy centers we will: 1) Develop performance measures for hydroxyurea prescribing for the three main provider types that care for children with SCD (hematologists, primary care physicians, and emergency clinicians), 2) Develop and implement an incentive payment system for each provider type, and 3) Evaluate the effectiveness of financial incentives for providers to increase hydroxyurea prescribing and decrease emergency department visits for children with SCD. Our evaluation will be employing a mixed-method design involving quantitative methods to estimate the impact of the incentive payment; and qualitative methods to explore questions related to how or why the incentive payments did or did not impact the outcomes, and to understand issues, barriers, best practices, and lessons learned related to hydroxyurea prescribing among children with SCD. Our program will be guided by a partnership committee made of the major stakeholders, including the NYS Medicaid program, MetroPlus (our Medicaid managed care plan), and representatives of each of the provider types.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
