1. Achievement of age-friendly health systems committed to care excellence designation in a convenient care health care system
- Author
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Pohnert, Anne M., Schiltz, Nicholas K., Pino, Lilia, Ball, Sarah, Duffy, Evelyn G., McCormack, Mary E., Oliver, Brant, Patterson, Angela, Pelton, Leslie, and Dolansky, Mary A.
- Subjects
Patients -- Care and treatment ,Medical care -- Quality management ,Evidence-based medicine -- Evaluation ,Business ,Health care industry - Abstract
Objective: To describe the implementation of the age-friendly health systems (AFHS) 4Ms Framework, an evidence-based framework to assess and act on 'What Matters, Medication, Mentation and Mobility to deliver Age-Friendly health care for patients 65 and older', to achieve the Institute for Health care Improvement (IHI) Committed to Care Excellence recognition in a convenient care health system and test two novel implementation strategies. Setting: The study was conducted in over 1100 convenient care clinics in 35 states and DC. MinuteClinics are located in community-based retail pharmacies in rural, suburban, and urban areas and staffed with approximately 3300 nurse practitioners and physician associates. Design: In Year 1, the project used a quality improvement design, and in Year 2, a quasiexperimental implementation research design to pilot two strategies at the provider level (Virtual Clinic and Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA)). Statistical process control charts were used to assess changes in 4Ms documentation over time. Mixed-effects Poisson regression was used to assess the effectiveness of the pilot studies. Data Collection: The electronic health record (EHR) was enhanced to capture documentation of the AFHS 4Ms assessments and actions. A learning platform was created to teach and evaluate provider 4Ms competency, and the two data sources were merged into a registry. A formative evaluation was conducted using Tableau and reporting dashboards. Findings: After 18 months and the implementation of 20 strategies to improve the uptake of the 4Ms, MinuteClinic achieved the IHI Committed to Care Excellence recognition. A significant increase over time in the reliable delivery of all 4Ms and each M component individually was found. For the research, there were significant improvements in the mean number of Ms delivered per visit (M-Score) in the Virtual Clinic (Incident Rate Ratio [IRR]: 2.47, p = 0.001) and PDSA (IRR: 3.08, p = 0.002) strategy intervention groups when compared to controls. Conclusions: Application of quality improvement and implementation methodologies contributed to the success of implementing age-friendly 4Ms evidence-based practice. KEYWORDS age-friendly, convenient care, evidence-based practice, implementation, older adult, quality improvement, reliability What is known on this topic? * There is little evidence that older adults receive age-friendly care in community-based convenience care clinics despite the prevalent use of services. What does the study add? * The integration of age-friendly 4Ms 'What Matters, Medication, Mentation, Mobility' in convenient care clinic settings highlights the unique opportunity to provide health promotion and spread evidence-based geriatric care. * The use of quality improvement and implementation science methods and implementation strategies contributes to the reliable integration of age-friendly health systems and evidencebased 4Ms care., 1 | INTRODUCTION By 2034, there will be over 77 million adults in the United States over the age of 65, (1,2) and with this unprecedented aging of the population, [...]
- Published
- 2023
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