The impact of the Texas DSRIP program on preventable hospitalizations in southeast Texas

Abstract

The adoption of Medicaid Section 1115 waiver was undertaken to improve healthcare access and reform healthcare programs especially for the uninsured and needy populations in Texas. The waiver aims at developing infrastructure and the redesigning healthcare delivery system to improve quality of care. The Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) waiver pool, one of the two funding pools of the waiver has four categories of which a metric of the fourth category, preventable hospitalizations was analyzed for eight Category 4 conditions stipulated by the program. The Texas Healthcare Information Collection (THCIC) database was used for performing both a time series regression analysis and an interrupted time series regression analysis with preventable hospitalizations as the dependent variable and time and DSRIP program covariates as independent variables, respectively, specific to the nine counties located in southeast Texas for both sets of DSRIP- and non-DSRIP hospitals. The impact of the program on eight Category 4 conditions was examined for the duration of 22 pre-post quarterly time periods in southeast Texas for both DSRIP and non-DSRIP hospitals. It was detected that the preventable hospitalization rate decreased in DSRIP hospitals and the DSRIP program may have improved the health of the population in southeast Texas