Impact of Statewide Prevention and Reduction of Clostridioides difficile (SPARC), a Maryland public health-academic collaborative: an evaluation of a quality improvement intervention.

To evaluate changes in Clostridioides difficile incidence rates for Maryland hospitals that participated in the Statewide Prevention and Reduction of C. difficile (SPARC) collaborative. Pre-post, difference-in-difference analysis of non-randomised intervention using four quarters of preintervention and six quarters of postintervention National Healthcare Safety Network data for SPARC hospitals (April 2017 to March 2020) and 10 quarters for control hospitals (October 2017 to March 2020). Mixed-effects negative binomial models were used to assess changes over time. Process evaluation using hospital intervention implementation plans, assessments and interviews with staff at eight SPARC hospitals. Maryland, USA. All Maryland acute care hospitals; 12 intervention and 36 control hospitals. Participation in SPARC, a public health-academic collaborative made available to Maryland hospitals, with staggered enrolment between June 2018 and August 2019. Hospitals with higher C. difficile rates were recruited via email and phone. SPARC included assessments, feedback reports and ongoing technical assistance. Primary outcomes were C. difficile incidence rate measured as the quarterly number of C. difficile infections per 10 000 patient-days (outcome measure) and SPARC intervention hospitals' experiences participating in the collaborative (process measures). SPARC invited 13 hospitals to participate in the intervention, with 92% (n=12) participating. The 36 hospitals that did not participate served as control hospitals. SPARC hospitals were associated with 45% greater C. difficile reduction as compared with control hospitals (incidence rate ratio=0.55, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.88, p=0.012). Key SPARC activities, including access to trusted external experts, technical assistance, multidisciplinary collaboration, an accountability structure, peer-to-peer learning opportunities and educational resources, were associated with hospitals reporting positive experiences with SPARC. SPARC intervention hospitals experienced 45% greater reduction in C. difficile rates than control hospitals. A public health-academic collaborative might help reduce C. difficile and other hospital-acquired infections in individual hospitals and at state or regional levels.

Engaging patients and stakeholders in preresearch: findings from the Pipeline to Proposal Awards Initiative.

Aim: The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute Pipeline to Proposal (P2P) Awards Initiative funded 177 awardees to engage patients and stakeholder partners in preresearch. Based on P2P, we described engagement strategies; outcomes; facilitators; and challenges to inform research funders and stakeholders participating in preresearch. Materials & methods: We used a qualitative approach based on content analysis of program data and interviews with P2P awardees and partners. Results: Awardees developed partnership infrastructure by recruiting patients and stakeholders, establishing clear roles, and providing training. Building trust was key to engaging patients and stakeholders in preresearch. Awardees reported partners were more likely to engage in PCOR in the future. Conclusion: P2P awardees increased capacity of patient and stakeholder partnerships to conduct PCOR.

A Framework for Rigorous Qualitative Research as a Component of Mixed Method Rapid-Cycle Evaluation.

As federal, state, and local governments continue to test innovative approaches to health care delivery, the ability to produce timely and reliable evidence of what works and why it works is crucial. There is limited literature on methodological approaches to rapid-cycle qualitative research. The purpose of this article is to describe the advantages and limitations of a broadly applicable framework for in-depth qualitative analysis placed within a larger rapid-cycle, multisite, mixed-method evaluation. This evaluation included multiple cycles of primary qualitative data collection and quarterly and annual reporting. Several strategies allowed us to be adaptable while remaining rigorous; these included planning for multiple waves of qualitative coding, a hybrid inductive/deductive approach informed by a cross-program evaluation framework, and use of a large team with specific program expertise. Lessons from this evaluation can inform researchers and evaluators functioning in rapid assessment or rapid-cycle evaluation contexts.

Innovative Home Visit Models Associated With Reductions In Costs, Hospitalizations, And Emergency Department Use.

While studies of home-based care delivered by teams led by primary care providers have shown cost savings, little is known about outcomes when practice-extender teams-that is, teams led by registered nurses or lay health workers-provide home visits with similar components (for example, care coordination and education). We evaluated findings from five models funded by Health Care Innovation Awards of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Each model used a mix of different components to strengthen connections to primary care among fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries with multiple chronic conditions; these connections included practice-extender home visits. Two models achieved significant reductions in Medicare expenditures, and three models reduced utilization in the form of emergency department visits, hospitalizations, or both for beneficiaries relative to comparators. These findings present a strong case for the potential value of home visits by practice-extender teams to reduce Medicare expenditures and service use in a particularly vulnerable and costly segment of the Medicare population.

Physician Engagement Strategies in Care Coordination: Findings from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' Health Care Innovation Awards Program.

OBJECTIVE: To identify roles physicians assumed as part of new health care delivery models and related strategies that facilitated physician engagement across 21 Health Care Innovation Award (HCIA) programs. DATA SOURCES: Site-level in-depth interviews, conducted from 2014 to 2015 (N = 672) with program staff, leadership, and partners (including 95 physicians) and direct observations. STUDY DESIGN: NORC conducted a mixed-method evaluation, including two rounds of qualitative data collected via site visits and telephone interviews. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS: We used qualitative thematic coding for data from 21 programs actively engaging physicians as part of HCIA interventions. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Establishing physician champions and ensuring an innovation-values fit between physicians and programs, including the strategies programs employed, facilitated engagement. Among engagement practices identified in this study, tailoring team working styles to meet physician preferences and conducting physician outreach and education were the most common successful approaches. CONCLUSIONS: We describe engagement strategies derived from a diverse range of programs. Successful programs considered physicians' values and engagement as components of process and policy, rather than viewing them as exogenous factors affecting innovation adoption. These types of approaches enabled programs to accelerate acceptance of innovations within organizations.