A group of University of Minnesota graduate students in law and health is conducting a study of high-frequency healthcare utilizers with funds obtained through the Consortium's Research Awards program. The grant is "Twin Cities High Utilizers: A Patient-Centered Approach to Address the High Cost of Health Care" and the work is being conducted by UMN Hotspotters, who are utilizing a methodology originally developed by Dr. Jeffrey Brenner, MD (interviewed here on Freakonomics Radio) of the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers (CCHP). The ultimate goal of hotspotting is to identify patients for whom socioeconomic factors are causing overuse of emergency rooms, rather than more effective and less expensive healthcare options. An article in today's Minnesota Daily describes the UMN Hotspotters pilot study and their plans to expand upon it.