List date(s) this work was published or aired.
5-Feb-12
Provide a brief synopsis of the story or stories, including any significant findings.
Oregon’s Health Policy plan is trying to focus on saving money and improving care by helping people with chronic health problems get more preventive and primary care. Doing so, health experts say, will ensure they don’t spend so much time in emergency and hospital rooms and will save money. The Oregonian decided to look at how this approach was working for one Portland managed care organization called CareOregon, which serves mostly Medicaid patients on the Oregon Health Plan. CareOregon determined that 25 percent of its patients accounted for 83 percent of its medical costs. So it hired four outreach workers to more closely monitor patients who frequently show up in emergency rooms. The Oregonian followed one of these workers, Becky Wilkinson, over several days as she attempted to help chronically ill “high dollar” patients avoid the emergency room. The story focuses on four patients that Wilkinson has helped keep out of the hospital, sometimes with great difficulty. One of them, Joyce Jones, had visited the emergency room 95 times and had 16 hospital stays in the previous year for a total cost of about $250,000. The story takes readers into the homes, clinics and hospital rooms where Wilkinson meets these patients and solves complicated life and health problems.
Explain types of documents, data or Internet resources used. Were FOI or public records act requests required? How did this affect the work?
Most of the documents for this story came from CareOregon, a managed care organization that handles mostly Medicaid patients on the Oregon Health Plan. CareOregon was able to supply details on the doctor, emergency room, hospital and other health costs of the patients we tracked as well as statistics on the entire 160,000 adults whom it serves. We also looked at state documents for Oregon’s Health Policy plan.
Explain types of human sources used.
This story focuses closely on Becky Wilkinson, a CareOregon outreach worker and four of the patients she serves. The patients all signed agreements, allowing Bill to join Wilkinson as she visited and helped them. Bill also talked to CareOregon executives, doctors and hospital staff about Wilkinson’s work.
Results:
The story drew wide interest. It painted such a clear, concrete picture of how more upfront preventative and primary care can benefit patients and save money that state health leaders used it to pitch parts of the state Health Policy plan.
Follow-up (if any). Have you run a correction or clarification on the report or has anyone come forward to challenge its accuracy? If so, please explain.
No.
Advice to other journalists planning a similar story or project.
It is great to talk to experts and get numbers and statistics, but nothing brings a story like this alive more than getting out in the field to spend time with people on the front lines. That is where you will find the poignant details and emotional exchanges that create conflict and drama in what could otherwise be an informative, but dry story.