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Abstract Background The Veterans Affairs (VA) Clinical Resource Hub (CRH) program aims to improve patient access to care by implementing time-limited, regionally based primary or mental health staffing support to cover local staffing vacancies. VA’s Office of Primary Care (OPC) designed CRH to support more than 1000 geographically disparate VA outpatient sites, many of which are in rural areas, by providing virtual contingency clinical staffing for sites experiencing primary care and mental health staffing deficits. The subsequently funded CRH evaluation, carried out by the VA Primary Care Analytics Team (PCAT), partnered with CRH program leaders and evaluation stakeholders to develop a protocol for a six-year CRH evaluation. The objectives for developing the CRH evaluation protocol were to prospectively: 1) identify the outcomes CRH aimed to achieve, and the key program elements designed to achieve them; 2) specify evaluation designs and data collection approaches for assessing CRH progress and success; and 3) guide the activities of five geographically dispersed evaluation teams. Methods The protocol documents a multi-method CRH program evaluation design with qualitative and quantitative elements. The evaluation’s overall goal is to assess CRH’s return on investment to the VA and Veterans at six years through synthesis of findings on program effectiveness. The evaluation includes both observational and quasi-experimental elements reflecting impacts at the national, regional, outpatient site, and patient levels. The protocol is based on program evaluation theory, implementation science frameworks, literature on contingency staffing, and iterative review and revision by both research and clinical operations partners. Discussion Health systems increasingly seek to use data to guide management and decision-making for newly implemented clinical programs and policies. Approaches for planning evaluations to accomplish this goal, however, are not well-established. By publishing the protocol, we aim to increase the validity and usefulness of subsequent evaluation findings. We also aim to provide an example of a program evaluation protocol developed within a learning health systems partnership.

The premise of this project was that social and behavioral determinants of health (SBDH) affect the use of healthcare services and outcomes for patients in an integrated healthcare system such as the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), and thus individual patient level socio-behavioral factors in addition to the neighborhood characteristics and geographically linked factors could add information beyond medical factors mostly considered in clinical decision making, patient care, and population health. To help VHA better address SBDH risk factors for the veterans it cares for within its primary care clinics, we proposed a conceptual and analytic framework, a set of evidence-based measures, and their data source. The framework and recommended SBDH metrics can provide a road map for other primary care-centric healthcare organizations wishing to use health analytic tools to better understand how SBDH affect health outcomes.

Objectives: We evaluated the association of mental illnesses with clinical outcomes among US veterans and evaluated the effects of Primary Care-Mental Health Integration (PCMHI)., Methods: A total of 4 461 208 veterans were seen in the Veterans Health Administration's patient-centered medical homes called Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACT) in 2010 and 2011, of whom 1 147 022 had at least 1 diagnosis of depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorder (SUD), anxiety disorder, or serious mental illness (SMI; i.e., schizophrenia or bipolar disorder). We estimated 1-year risk of emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations, and mortality by mental illness category and by PCMHI involvement., Results: A quarter of all PACT patients reported 1 or more mental illnesses. Depression, SMI, and SUD were associated with increased risk of hospitalization or death. PTSD was associated with lower odds of ED visits and mortality. Having 1 or more contact with PCMHI was associated with better outcomes., Conclusions: Mental illnesses are associated with poor outcomes, but integrating mental health treatment in primary care may be associated with lower risk of those outcomes.