Self-Reported Quality, Health, and Cost-Related Outcomes of Care Coordination Among Patients with Complex Health Needs.

Care coordination is an increasingly popular strategy to help patients with complex health conditions manage their diseases more effectively. The purpose of the current study was to assess associations between patient-reported receipt of care coordination and their experiences of health, health care quality, and cost-related outcomes. Regression analyses of data from 431 patients across 13 Texas providers indicate that patients who reported receiving care coordination had higher odds of perceiving having enough information about how to manage their conditions (OR 2.02,  < .01), having information about education and treatments available (OR 1.87,  < .01), and reporting better access to care (beta = .27,  < .01). Receipt of care coordination was not associated with patients' reports of how up-to-date their doctors were about care from other providers, patients' health-related functioning, or patients' intention to return to the emergency department. Patients' reasons for intending to return to the emergency department included the speed of care there relative to alternatives and satisfaction with the quality of care they had received previously in the emergency department. Results suggest that care coordination in usual practice may improve patient preventive care, but not some other health or cost-related outcomes.