About

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is an important community based healthcare resource that already interacts with many of our most vulnerable patients during transport to the home following hospital discharge.  These clinical providers may be appropriately situated to contribute to the transition of care to the home environment.

Care transitions, particularly those that guide patients through a hospital discharge and into the community, have been highlighted by the Congressional Budget Office as an opportunity for improvement in quality of health care and reduction of readmission-associated expenditures. Of the more than $20 billion annual hospital Medicare expenditures caused by beneficiaries aged 65 and older, $12 billion are attributed to preventable hospital readmissions.

Dr. Kevin Munjal led a team at the Mount Sinai Health System to develop and pilot an innovative care model known as “Transport PLUS,” in which specially trained emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who are already transporting an older adult patient home from the ED add to their service two simple interventions – a home fall safety assessment (FSA) and a discharge comprehension assessment (DCA).

This website is being developed so that eventually, visitors can learn more about this innovative program and how to implement it in their EMS agency or in their community.