Hospitals Use 'Hot Spotting' To Zero In On Super-Users

At San Francisco General Hospital, less than 3 percent of patients who come to its adult medical clinic are responsible for 35 percent of all admissions.

In Oakland, just 5 percent of patients in Alameda Health System's Highland Hospital account for 50 percent of hospital "days," meaning a sliver of the population racks up the bulk of the hospital's long, costly hospitals stays.

But a growing trend of "hot spotting" - using sophisticated data mapping to zero in on the chronic "super-users" of health services - is taking hold, spurred in part by provisions in the federal Affordable Care Act that financially reward efforts to help keep patients healthier and out of the hospital.

Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Oakland and Berkeley is among the more recent converts to hot spotting. The center invested $400,000 in new software data to help identify - down to specific addresses - patterns in how Oakland residents are using health care and what additional resources super-users may need to avoid hospitalization, such as providing neighborhood clinics with flexible hours.