(AP) -- The University of Missouri school of nursing will use a four-year, $15 million federal grant to help reduce the need to re-hospitalize nursing home patients.
The university's Sinclair School of Nursing announced Monday that it had received the grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Led by nursing professor Marilyn Rantz, researchers will design a project to reduce avoidable re-hospitalizations of nursing home residents.
The university said in a news release that previous research suggests nearly half of hospitalizations among nursing home residents enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid could have been avoided. The cost of those hospitalizations was estimated at more than $7 billion in 2011.
The university will partner with federal and state Medicaid workers to improve care for residents at 16 St. Louis nursing facilities.
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