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Background: The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is a primary care delivery model predicated on shared responsibility for patient care among members of an interprofessional team. Effective task sharing may reduce burnout among primary care providers (PCPs). However, little is known about the extent to which PCPs share these responsibilities, and which, if any, of the primary care tasks performed independently by the PCPs (vs. shared with the team) are particularly associated with PCP burnout. A better understanding of the relationship between these tasks and their effects on PCP burnout may help guide focused efforts aimed at reducing burnout., Objective: To investigate (1) the extent to which PCPs share responsibility for 14 discrete primary care tasks with other team members, and (2) which, if any, of the primary care tasks performed by the PCPs (without reliance on team members) are associated with PCP burnout., Design: Secondary data analysis of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) survey data from two time periods., Participants: 327 providers from 23 VA primary care practices within one VHA regional network., Main Measures: The dependent variable was PCP report of burnout. Independent variables included PCP report of the extent to which they performed 14 discrete primary care tasks without reliance on team members; team functioning; and PCP-, clinic-, and system-level variables., Key Results: In adjusted models, PCP reports of intervening on patient lifestyle factors and educating patients about disease-specific self-care activities, without reliance on their teams, were significantly associated with burnout (intervening on lifestyle: b = 4.11, 95% CI = 0.39, 7.83, p = 0.03; educating patients: b = 3.83, 95% CI = 0.33, 7.32, p = 0.03)., Conclusions: Performing behavioral counseling and self-management education tasks without relying on other team members for assistance was associated with PCP burnout. Expanding the roles of nurses and other healthcare professionals to assume responsibility for these tasks may ease PCP burden and reduce burnout.

Context: There is a strong interest in the Veterans Administration (VA) Health-care System in promoting patient engagement to improve patient care., Methods: We solicited expert opinion using an online expert panel system with a modified Delphi structure called ExpertLens ™ . Experts reviewed, rated and discussed eight scenarios, representing four patient engagement roles in designing and improving VA outpatient care (consultant, implementation advisor, equal stakeholder and lead stakeholder) and two VA levels (local and regional). Rating criteria included desirability, feasibility, patient ability, physician/staff acceptance and impact on patient-centredness and care quality. Data were analysed using the RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method for determining consensus., Findings: Experts rated consulting with patients at the local level as the most desirable and feasible patient engagement approach. Engagement at the local level was considered more desirable than engagement at the regional level. Being an equal stakeholder at the local level received the highest ratings on the patient-centredness and health-care quality criteria., Conclusions: Our findings illustrate expert opinion about different approaches to patient engagement and highlight the benefits and challenges posed by each. Although experts rated local consultations with patients on an as-needed basis as most desirable and feasible, they rated being an equal stakeholder at the local level as having the highest potential impact on patient-centredness and care quality. This result highlights a perceived discrepancy between what is most desirable and what is potentially most effective, but suggests that routine local engagement of patients as equal stakeholders may be a desirable first step for promoting high-quality, patient-centred care., (© 2016 The Authors. Health Expectations Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The inclusion of community partners in participatory leadership roles around statistical design issues like sampling and randomization has raised concerns about scientific integrity. This article presents a case study of a community-partnered, participatory research (CPPR) cluster-randomized, comparative effectiveness trial to examine implications for study validity and community relevance. Using study administrative data, we describe a CPPR-based design and implementation process for agency/program sampling, recruitment, and randomization for depression interventions. We calculated participation rates and used cross-tabulation to examine balance by intervention status on service sector, location, and program size and assessed differences in potential populations served. We achieved 51.5% agency and 89.6% program participation rates. Programs in different intervention arms were not significantly different on service sector, location, or program size. Participating programs were not significantly different from eligible, nonparticipating programs on community characteristics. We reject claims that including community members in research design decisions compromises scientific integrity. This case study suggests that a CPPR process can improve implementation of a community-grounded, rigorous randomized comparative effectiveness trial., (© 2015 Society for Public Health Education.)

Background: The patient-centered medical home (PCMH) is a team-based, comprehensive model of primary care. When effectively implemented, PCMH is associated with higher patient satisfaction, lower staff burnout, and lower hospitalization for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions. However, less is known about what factors contribute to (or hinder) PCMH implementation. We explored the associations of specific facilitators and barriers reported by primary care employees with a previously validated, clinic-level measure of PCMH implementation, the Patient Aligned Care Team Implementation Progress Index (Pi(2))., Methods: We used a 2012 survey of primary care employees in the Veterans Health Administration to perform cross-sectional, respondent-level multinomial regressions. The dependent variable was the Pi(2) categorized as high implementation (top decile, 54 clinics, 235 respondents), medium implementation (middle eight deciles, 547 clinics, 4537 respondents), and low implementation (lowest decile, 42 clinics, 297 respondents) among primary care clinics. The independent variables were ordinal survey items rating 19 barriers to patient-centered care and 10 facilitators of PCMH implementation. For facilitators, we explored clinic Pi(2) score decile both as a function of respondent-reported availability of facilitators and of rating of facilitator helpfulness., Results: The availability of five facilitators was associated with higher odds of a respondent's clinic's Pi(2) scores being in the highest versus lowest decile: teamlet huddles (OR = 3.91), measurement tools (OR = 3.47), regular team meetings (OR = 2.88), information systems (OR = 2.42), and disease registries (OR = 2.01). The helpfulness of four facilitators was associated with higher odds of a respondent's clinic's Pi(2) scores being in the highest versus lowest decile. Six barriers were associated with significantly higher odds of a respondent's clinic's Pi(2) scores being in the lowest versus highest decile, with the strongest associations for the difficulty recruiting and retaining providers (OR = 2.37) and non-provider clinicians (OR = 2.17). Results for medium versus low Pi(2) score clinics were similar, with fewer, smaller significant associations, all in the expected direction., Conclusions: A number of specific barriers and facilitators were associated with PCMH implementation, notably recruitment and retention of clinicians, team huddles, and local education. These findings can guide future research, and may help healthcare policy makers and leaders decide where to focus attention and limited resources.

Background: Unclear roles in interdisciplinary primary care teams can impede optimal team-based care. We assessed perceived task allocation among primary care providers (PCPs) and staff during implementation of a new patient-centered care model in Veterans Affairs (VA) primary care practices., Methods: We performed a cross-sectional survey of PCPs and primary care staff (registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical/vocational nurses (LPNs), and medical assistants/clerks (MAs)) in 23 primary care practices within one VA region. We asked subjects whether PCPs performed each of 14 common primary care tasks alone, or relied upon staff for help. Tasks included gathering preventive service history, disease screening, evaluating patients and making treatment decisions, intervening on lifestyle factors, educating patients about self-care activities and medications, refilling prescriptions, receiving and resolving patient messages, completing forms, tracking diagnostic data, referral tracking, and arranging home health care. We then performed multivariable regression to determine predictors of perceived PCP reliance on staff for each task., Results: 162 PCPs and 257 staff members responded, a 60% response rate. For 12/14 tasks, fewer than 50% of PCPs reported relying on staff for help. For all 14 tasks, over 85% of RNs reported they were relied upon. For 12/14 tasks, over 50% of LPNs reported they were relied on, while for 5/14 tasks a majority of MAs reported being relied upon. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants (NP/PAs) reported relying on staff less than physicians., Conclusions: Early in the implementation of a team-based primary care model, most PCPs perceived they were solely responsible for most clinical tasks. RNs, and LPNs felt they were relied upon for most of the same tasks, while medical assistants/clerks reported being relied on for fewer tasks. Better understanding of optimal inter-professional team task allocation in primary care is needed., (Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Background: Poor communication between primary care providers (PCPs) and specialists is a significant problem and a detriment to effective care coordination. Inconsistency in the quality of primary-specialty communication persists even in environments with integrated delivery systems and electronic medical records (EMRs), such as the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)., Objective: The purpose of this study was to measure ease of communication and to characterize communication challenges perceived by PCPs and primary care personnel in the VHA, with a particular focus on challenges associated with referral communication., Design: The study utilized a convergent mixed-methods design: online cross-sectional survey measuring PCP-reported ease of communication with specialists, and semi-structured interviews characterizing primary-specialty communication challenges., Participants: 191 VHA PCPs from one regional network were surveyed (54% response rate), and 41 VHA PCPs and primary care staff were interviewed., Main Measures/approach: PCP-reported ease of communication mean score (survey) and recurring themes in participant descriptions of primary-specialty referral communication (interviews) were analyzed., Key Results: Among PCPs, ease-of-communication ratings were highest for women's health and mental health (mean score of 2.3 on a scale of 1-3 in both), and lowest for cardiothoracic surgery and neurology (mean scores of 1.3 and 1.6, respectively). Primary care personnel experienced challenges communicating with specialists via the EMR system, including difficulty in communicating special requests for appointments within a certain time frame and frequent rejection of referral requests due to rigid informational requirements. When faced with these challenges, PCPs reported using strategies such as telephone and e-mail contact with specialists with whom they had established relationships, as well as the use of an EMR-based referral innovation called "eConsults" as an alternative to a traditional referral., Conclusions: Primary-specialty communication is a continuing challenge that varies by specialty and may be associated with the likelihood of an established connection already in place between specialty and primary care. Improvement in EMR systems is needed, with more flexibility for the communication of special requests. Building relationships between PCPs and specialists may also facilitate referral communication.

Objective: Transformation of primary care to new patient-centered models requires major changes in healthcare organizations, including interprofessional expectations and organizational policies. Emotional exhaustion (EE) among workers can accompany major organizational change, threatening its success. Yet little guidance exists about the magnitude of associations with EE during primary care transformation. We assessed EE during the initial phase of national primary care transformation in the Veterans Health Administration., Research Design: Cross-sectional online surveys of primary care clinicians (PCCs) and staff in 23 primary care clinics within 5 healthcare systems in 1 veterans administration administrative region. We used descriptive, bivariate, and multivariable analyses adjusted for clinic membership and weighted for nonresponse., Participants: 515 veterans administration employees (191 PCCs and 324 other primary care staff)., Measures: Outcome is the EE subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Predictors include clinic characteristics (from administrative data) and self-reported efficacy for change, experiences with transformation, and perspectives about the organization., Results: The overall response rate was 64% (515/811). In total, 53% of PCCs and 43% of staff had high EE. PCCs (vs. other primary care staff), female (vs. male), and non-Latino (vs. Latino) respondents reported higher EE. Respondents reporting higher efficacy for change and participatory decision making had lower EE scores, adjusting for sex and race., Conclusions: Recognition by healthcare organizations of the potential for clinician and staff EE during primary care transformation is critical. Methods for reducing EE by increasing clinician and staff change efficacy and opportunities to participate in decision making should be considered, with attention to PCCs, and women.

Background: Healthcare systems and their primary care practices are redesigning to achieve goals identified in Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) models such as Veterans Affairs (VA)'s Patient Aligned Care Teams (PACT). Implementation of these models, however, requires major transformation. Evidence-Based Quality Improvement (EBQI) is a multi-level approach for supporting organizational change and innovation spread., Objective: To describe EBQI as an approach for promoting VA's PACT and to assess initial implementation of planned EBQI elements., Design: Descriptive., Participants: Regional and local interdisciplinary clinical leaders, patient representatives, Quality Council Coordinators, practicing primary care clinicians and staff, and researchers from six demonstration site practices in three local healthcare systems in one VA region., Intervention: EBQI promotes bottom-up local innovation and spread within top-down organizational priorities. EBQI innovations are supported by a research-clinical partnership, use continuous quality improvement methods, and are developed in regional demonstration sites., Approach: We developed a logic model for EBQI for PACT (EBQI-PACT) with inputs, outputs, and expected outcomes. We describe implementation of logic model outputs over 18 months, using qualitative data from 84 key stakeholders (104 interviews from two waves) and review of study documents., Results: Nearly all implementation elements of the EBQI-PACT logic model were fully or partially implemented. Elements not fully achieved included patient engagement in Quality Councils (4/6) and consistent local primary care practice interdisciplinary leadership (4/6). Fourteen of 15 regionally approved innovation projects have been completed, three have undergone initial spread, five are prepared to spread, and two have completed toolkits that have been pretested in two to three sites and are now ready for external spread., Discussion: EBQI-PACT has been feasible to implement in three participating healthcare systems in one VA region. Further development of methods for engaging patients in care design and for promoting interdisciplinary leadership is needed.

Background: New patient-centered models of ambulatory care aim to substitute better primary care for preventable acute care within existing primary care practices. This study aims to identify whether mental illness and other characteristics of primary care patients are related to risk for an acute event for an ambulatory care-sensitive condition (ACSC)., Methods: We conducted a 2-year, longitudinal analysis comparing ambulatory care-sensitive admissions and emergency department (ED) visits for a cohort of 18,526 primary care patients followed in 5 veterans affairs (VA) primary care sites. We compared rates, risks, and costs of ACSC-related acute events during a follow-up year for patients with and without mental illness seen during the previous year in primary care., Results: The 12-month rate of ACSC admissions was 31.7 admissions per 1000 patients with mental health diagnoses compared with 21.0 admissions per 1000 patients without (P=0.0009). The ACSC-associated ED visit rate was also significantly higher (P<0.0001). In adjusted analyses controlling for demographics, chronic disease, illness severity, and prior ambulatory care, those with depression or drug use disorders had higher odds of receiving ACSC-related acute care (odds ratio=1.10, 95% confidence interval: 1.03, 1.17 for depression; odds ratio=1.48, 95% confidence interval: 1.05, 1.99 for drug use disorders). Costs per admission and ED visit were similar across patient groups. Higher medication use and lower medication regimen complexity were significantly associated with decreased risk for ACSC events., Conclusions: Prior mental health diagnoses and medication use were independent risk factors for ACSC-related acute care. These risk factors require focused attention if the full benefits of new primary care models are to be achieved.

Objectives: To explore hospital leaders' perceptions of organisational factors as barriers and/or facilitators in improving inpatient-outpatient (IP-OP) communication., Design: Semistructured in-person interviews., Analysis: Constant comparative method of qualitative data., Setting: Inpatient psychiatry units in 33 general medical/surgical and specialty psychiatric hospitals in California and Massachusetts (USA)., Participants: Psychiatry chair/chief, service director or medical director., Variables: Importance to leadership, resources, organisational structure and culture., Results: A majority of hospital leaders rated the IP-OP communication objective as highly or moderately important. Hospitals with good IP-OP communication had structures in place to support communication or had changed/implemented new procedures to enhance communication, and anticipated clinicians would 'buy in' to the goal of improved communication. Hospitals reporting no improvement efforts were less likely to have structures supporting IP-OP communication, anticipated resistance among clinicians and reported a need for technological resources such as electronic health records, integrated IT and secure online communication. Most leaders reported a need for additional staff time and information, knowledge or data., Conclusions: For many hospitals, successfully improving communication will require overcoming organisational barriers such as cultures not conducive to change and lack of resources and infrastructure. Creating a culture that values communication at discharge may help improve outcomes following hospitalisation, but changes in healthcare delivery in the past few decades may necessitate new strategies or changes at the systems level to address barriers to effective communication.

This study examines the relationship among neighborhood stressors, stress-buffering mechanisms, and likelihood of alcohol, drug, and mental health (ADM) disorders in adults from 60 US communities (n=12,716). Research shows that larger support structures may interact with individual support factors to affect mental health, but few studies have explored buffering effects of these neighborhood characteristics. We test a conceptual model that explores effects of neighborhood stressors and stress-buffering mechanisms on ADM disorders. Using Health Care for Communities with census and other data, we found a lower likelihood of disorders in neighborhoods with a greater presence of stress-buffering mechanisms. Higher neighborhood average household occupancy and churches per capita were associated with a lower likelihood of disorders. Cross-level interactions revealed that violence-exposed individuals in high crime neighborhoods are vulnerable to depressive/anxiety disorders. Likewise, individuals with low social support in neighborhoods with high social isolation (i.e., low-average household occupancy) had a higher likelihood of disorders. If replicated by future studies using longitudinal data, our results have implications for policies and programs targeting neighborhoods to reduce ADM disorders.

Objective: This study adapts Andersen's Behavioral Model to determine if health sector market conditions affect vulnerable subgroups' use of alcohol, drug, and mental health services (ADM) differently than the general population, focusing specifically on community-level predisposing and enabling characteristics., Data Sources: Wave 2 data (2000-2001) from the Health Care for Communities study, supplemented with cases from wave 1 (1997-1998), were merged with area characteristics taken from Census, Area Resource File (ARF), and other data sources., Study Design: The study used four-level hierarchical logistic regression to examine access to ADM care from any provider and specialty ADM access. Interactions between community-level predisposing and enabling vulnerability characteristics with individual race/ethnicity, age, income category, and insurance type were explored., Principal Findings: Nonwhites, the poor, uninsured, and elderly had lower likelihoods of service use, but interactions between race/ethnicity, income, age and insurance status with community-level vulnerability factors were not statistically significant for any service use. For ADM specialty care, those with Medicare, Medicaid, private fully managed, and private partially managed insurance, the likelihood of utilization was higher in areas with higher HMO penetration. However, for those with other insurance or no insurance plan, the likelihood of utilization was lower in areas with higher HMO penetration., Conclusions: Community-level enabling factors explain part of the effect of disadvantaged status but, with the exception of the effect of HMO penetration on the relationship between insurance and specialty care use, do not modify any of the residual individual-level effects of disadvantage. Interventions targeting both structural and individual levels may be necessary to address the problem of health disparities. More research with longitudinal data is necessary to sort out the causal direction of social context and ADM access outcomes, and whether policy interventions to change health sector market conditions can shift ADM treatment utilization.

This paper describes a study currently underway that uses a collaborative approach to assess organizational capacity to form partnerships around mental health and substance abuse care. Employing many of the principles of community-based participatory research, the study's primary objective is to collaboratively develop a conceptual understanding and generalizable, practical measures of organizational capacity. The intent of this collaborative approach is to increase the rigor and relevance of the assessment framework while strengthening the ability of health partnerships and stakeholders to understand and track community organizational capacity. The study investigators developed an initial model of community dissemination based on the research literatures on organizations and the diffusion of innovations. Through the collaborative process, the specific goals of the project shifted substantially to match the partnership interests and concerns of community agencies. One of the benefits of a collaborative approach has been to use researchers' academic knowledge to catalogue potential factors and the wealth of community coinvestigators' experiential knowledge of interagency dynamics to identify specific relevant dimensions of capacity. This initial exploratory study represents a first step toward developing a general approach to conceptualizing and tracking the organizational capacity of communities. The model and measurement framework may have wider applicability to capacities to partner around and implement a variety of health-related interventions within communities.

Objective: Use of longitudinal data can help clarify the extent of persistent need for services or persistent problems in gaining access to services. This study examined the level of transient and persistent need and unmet need over time among respondents to a national survey and whether need was met by provision of mental health services or resolved without treatment., Methods: Data from the longitudinal Health Care for Communities (HCC) household telephone survey were used to produce joint distributions of need status and care for two periods (wave 1 data collected in 1997 to 1998 and wave 2 data collected in 2000 to 2001; N=6,659). Perceived need was measured as self-report of need for help with a mental or substance use problem. Probable clinical need was assessed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, and the 12-item Short Form Health Survey., Results: High levels of persistent unmet need for care (44 to 52 percent) were found among respondents who had probable clinical need in wave 1. Although a majority of those with need received some care, an equal proportion (about 30 percent) of those with perceived need only or probable clinical need in wave 1 did not receive any care. A substantial portion of need (22 to 26 percent) appears to have resolved without treatment, which may suggest high levels of transient need., Conclusions: Persistent patterns of unmet need represent important targets for policy and programs that can improve utilization, including outreach, education, and improved insurance coverage.

Objectives: To evaluate the costs of implementing a church-based, telephone-counseling program for increasing mammography use, and to identify the components of costs and the likely cost-effectiveness in hypothetical communities with varying characteristics., Data Sources/study Setting: An ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of 1,443 women recruited from 45 churches participating in the Los Angeles Mammography Promotion (LAMP) program were followed from 1995 to 1997., Study Design: Churches were stratified into blocks and randomized into three intervention arms-telephone counseling, mail counseling, and control. We surveyed participants before and after the intervention to collect data on mammography use and demographic characteristics., Data Collection/extraction Methods: We used call records, activity reports, and interviews to collect data on the time and materials needed to organize and carry out the intervention. We constructed a standard model of costs and cost-effectiveness based on these data and the Year One results of the LAMP program., Principal Findings: The cost in materials and overhead to the church site was $10.89 per participant and $188 per additional screening. However, when the estimated cost for church volunteers' time was included, the cost of the intervention increased substantially., Conclusions: A church-based program to promote the use of mammography would be feasible for many churches with the use of volunteer labor and resources.

Objective: To explore the effects of community-level factors on access to any behavioral health care and specialty behavioral health care., Data: Healthcare for Communities household survey data, merged to supplemental data from the 1990 Census Area Resource File, 1995 U.S. Census Bureau Small Area Estimates, and 1994 HMO enrollment data., Study Design: We use a random intercept model to estimate the influences of community-level factors on access to any outpatient care, any behavioral health care conditional on having received outpatient care, and any specialty behavioral health care conditional on having received behavioral health care., Data Collection: HCC data were collected in 1997 from about 10,000 households nationwide but clustered in 60 sites., Principal Findings: Individuals in areas with greater HMO presence have better overall access to care, which in turn affects access to behavioral health care; individuals in poorer communities have less access to specialty care compared to individuals in wealthier communities., Conclusions: Our findings of lower access to specialty care among those in poor communities raises concerns about the appropriateness and quality of the behavioral health care they are receiving. More generally, the findings suggest the importance of considering the current status and expected evolution of HMO penetration and the income level in a community when devising health care policy.