Press releases

Released January 7, 2002
Yale-New Haven Hospital news release

Yale-New Haven Hospital Awarded Grant to Create National Model for Care of Uninsured

For more information, call 203-688-2493 or E-mail Mark D'Antonio

Yale-New Haven Hospital has been awarded $992,000 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop a national model that will address the growing issue of the uninsured and underinsured both locally and nationally.

This initiative, entitled "Wellness Information Network" (WIN), will be a collaborative effort between Yale-New Haven Hospital, Hill Health Center, Fair Haven Community Health Center, the Hospital of Saint Raphael and the New Haven Health Department. Under Yale-New Haven's leadership, the five organizations will develop a new integrated health system that will reduce cost barriers and improve access to health care for the underinsured and uninsured.

The grant will help create a database that will allow health care providers to share relevant information to facilitate access for the uninsured and underinsured. In addition, WIN funding will support a citywide case management system--a Community Health Information Network--to address, meet and monitor the needs of the uninsured and underinsured. Staff at each collaborative institution will help patients choose a medical provider, which will then become their "medical home." Staff at each institution will also work to ensure easy access to the health care system and help patients secure health coverage.

The WIN project will address a problem health care institutions face around the country--communication between neighboring institutions in the same city who share a population of uninsured and underinsured patients. The goal of WIN is to share information and work collaboratively toward better serving patients in their "medical home," eliminating multiple and preventable patient visits and repeated trips to emergency departments. Hospitals and communities across the nation will benefit from the WIN model because it will help reduce the costs of treating uninsured and underinsured patients while freeing up staff in emergency departments so that they are better able to care for critically ill patients.

"We're extremely proud the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has selected Yale-New Haven Hospital to be the leading health care institution for this important initiative," said James E. Rawlings, executive director of community health at Yale-New Haven Hospital. "Presently, many underinsured and uninsured individuals utilize the emergency department as their only source of health care. Often, they arrive at the hospital's doors in advanced stages of illness. Care is expensive and often duplicated at the emergency rooms in New Haven and around the country. The WIN Network will seek to find earlier solutions for these complex problems and ensure high quality health care for those in need within our community."

In New Haven, the grant will benefit patients, the community and city medical institutions by coordinating and providing better medical care and by reducing the enormous costs associated with medical care provided on an episodic or emergency basis.

For more information, please contact Mark D'Antonio at (203) 688-2493.

Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Conn., is a 944-bed not-for-profit hospital serving as the primary teaching hospital for the Yale University School of Medicine. Yale-New Haven was founded as the fourth voluntary hospital in the United States in 1826, and today the hospital complex includes the Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital and the Yale Psychiatric Hospital, with a combined medical staff of about 2,400 university and community physicians practicing in more than 100 specialties.

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