Cincinnati, Cleveland among six awarded grants to address 'super-utilizers'

Two Ohio communities are among six across the country to be awarded Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grants aimed at addressing "super-utilizers" of health care (Source: "‘Super-utilizers’ place huge burden on health-care system," Washington Post, Oct. 22, 2012).

Cleveland and Cincinnati join Boston, Humboldt County, California, Maine and Western Michigan as areas that will split $2.1 million to consider strategies to address those who are the heaviest utilizers of health care services. The communities have participated in RWJF's Aligning Forces for Quality initiative over the past few years.

According to the RWJF press release announcing the grants, “Health care spending in the United States is unevenly distributed, with the sickest 5 percent of patients causing more than 60 percent of health care costs.”

These type of patients began receiving increased national attention after a 2011 New Yorker article by Atul Gawande chronicled the work of a Camden, N.J. doctor who has developed innovative techniques for improving care to these so-called "hot spotters."