A Health System-Wide Initiative to Decrease Opioid-Related Morbidity and Mortality.

BACKGROUND: The opioid overdose crisis now claims more than 40,000 lives in the United States every year, and many hospitals and health systems are responding with opioid-related initiatives, but how best to coordinate hospital or health system-wide strategy and approach remains a challenge. METHODS: An organizational opioid stewardship program (OSP) was created to reduce opioid-related morbidity and mortality in order to provide an efficient, comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to address the epidemic in one health system. An executive committee of hospital leaders was convened to empower and launch the program. To measure progress, metrics related to care of patients on opioids and those with opioid use disorder (OUD) were evaluated. RESULTS: The OSP created a holistic, health system-wide program that addressed opioid prescribing, treatment of OUD, education, and information technology tools. After implementation, the number of opioid prescriptions decreased (-73.5/month; p < 0.001), mean morphine milligram equivalents (MME) per prescription decreased (-0.4/month; p < 0.001), the number of unique patients receiving an opioid decreased (-52.6/month; p < 0.001), and the number of prescriptions ≥ 90 MME decreased (-48.1/month; p < 0.001). Prescriptions and providers for buprenorphine increased (+6.0 prescriptions/month and +0.4 providers/month; both p < 0.001). Visits for opioid overdose did not change (-0.2 overdoses/month; p = 0.29). CONCLUSION: This paper describes a framework for a new health system-wide OSP. Successful implementation required strong executive sponsorship, ensuring that the program is not housed in any one clinical department in the health system, creating an environment that empowers cross-disciplinary collaboration and inclusion, as well as the development of measures to guide efforts.

Developing a Framework for Evaluating the Patient Engagement, Quality, and Safety of Mobile Health Applications.

Rising ownership of smartphones and tablets across social and demographic groups has made mobile applications, or apps, a potentially promising tool for engaging patients in their health care, particularly those with high health care needs. Through a systematic search of iOS (Apple) and Android app stores and an analysis of apps targeting individuals with chronic illnesses, we assessed the degree to which apps are likely to be useful in patient engagement efforts. Usefulness was determined based on the following criteria: description of engagement, relevance to the targeted patient population, consumer ratings and reviews, and most recent app update. Among the 1,046 health care-related, patient-facing applications identified by our search, 43 percent of iOS apps and 27 percent of Android apps appeared likely to be useful. We also developed criteria for evaluating the patient engagement, quality, and safety of mobile apps.

Professional Dissonance and Burnout in Primary Care: A Qualitative Study.

Importance: Burnout negatively affects physician health, productivity, and patient care. Its prevalence is high among physicians, especially those in primary care, yet few qualitative studies of burnout have been performed that engage frontline primary care practitioners (PCPs) for their perspectives. Objective: To identify factors contributing to burnout and low professional fulfillment, as well as potential solutions, by eliciting the views of PCPs. Design, Setting, and Participants: For this qualitative study, focus group discussions and interviews were conducted between February 1 and April 30, 2018, among 26 PCPs (physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants) at a US academic medical center with a network of 15 primary care clinics. Participants were asked about factors contributing to burnout and barriers to professional fulfillment as well as potential solutions related to workplace culture and efficiency, work-life balance, and resilience. Main Outcomes and Measures: Perceptions of the factors contributing to burnout and low professional fulfillment as well as potential solutions. Results: A total of 26 PCPs (21 physicians, 3 nurse practitioners, and 2 physician assistants; 21 [81%] women) from 10 primary care clinics participated. They had a mean (SD) of 19.4 (9.5) years of clinical experience. Six common themes emerged from PCPs' experiences with burnout: 3 external contributing factors and 3 internal manifestations. Participants described their workloads as excessively heavy, increasingly involving less "doctor" work and more "office" work, and reflecting unreasonable expectations. They felt demoralized by work conditions, undervalued by local institutions and the health care system, and conflicted in their daily work. Participants conveyed a sense of professional dissonance, or discomfort from working in a system that seems to hold values counter to their values as clinicians. They suggested potential solutions clustered around 8 themes: managing the workload, caring for PCPs as multidimensional human beings, disconnecting from work, recalibrating expectations and reimbursement levels, promoting PCPs' voice, supporting professionalism, fostering community, and advocating reforms beyond the institution. Conclusions and Relevance: In sharing their perspectives on factors contributing to burnout, frontline PCPs interviewed during this study described dissonance between their professional values and the realities of primary care practice, an authority-responsibility mismatch, and a sense of undervaluation. Practitioners also identified possible solutions institutions might consider investing in to resolve professional dissonance, reduce burnout rates, and improve professional fulfillment.

Development of an entirely remote, non-physician led hypertension management program.

BACKGROUND: Hypertension remains poorly controlled on the population level. National rates of control, even when defined leniently by BP < 140/90 mm Hg, are only ~50%. As growing healthcare costs coincide with tighter blood pressure (BP) targets, innovative management programs are needed to maximize efficiency of care delivery and optimize control. HYPOTHESIS: We aimed to develop a remote, navigator-led hypertension innovation program that would leverage algorithmic care pathways, home BP measurements and patient coaching to allow rapid and complete medication titration. METHODS: A multidisciplinary group of clinical experts from subspecialties and primary care collaborated to develop an evidence-based clinical algorithm, designed to be automated and administered by non-licensed patient navigators. In the development stage, a prospective pilot cohort of 130 patients was managed by nurse practitioners and pharmacists to ensure efficacy and safety. Patients with clinic BP ≥ 140/90 mm Hg were enrolled and given a Bluetooth-enabled BP device. Home BPs were transmitted automatically into the electronic medical record. Medication titrations were performed by phone at biweekly intervals, based upon weekly average BP, until home BP was controlled at <135/85 mm Hg. RESULTS: Eighty-one percent of all enrolled, and 91% of those patients who regularly measured home BP achieved goal, in an average of 7 weeks. Control was reached similarly across races, genders, and ages. CONCLUSIONS: A home-based BP control program run by non-physicians can provide efficient, effective and rapid control, suggesting an innovative paradigm for hypertension management. This program is effective, sustainable, adaptable, and scalable to fit current and emerging national systems of healthcare.

Many Mobile Health Apps Target High-Need, High-Cost Populations, But Gaps Remain.

With rising smartphone ownership, mobile health applications (mHealth apps) have the potential to support high-need, high-cost populations in managing their health. While the number of available mHealth apps has grown substantially, no clear strategy has emerged on how providers should evaluate and recommend such apps to patients. Key stakeholders, including medical professional societies, insurers, and policy makers, have largely avoided formally recommending apps, which forces patients to obtain recommendations from other sources. To help stakeholders overcome barriers to reviewing and recommending apps, we evaluated 137 patient-facing mHealth apps-those intended for use by patients to manage their health-that were highly rated by consumers and recommended by experts and that targeted high-need, high-cost populations. We found that there is a wide variety of apps in the marketplace but that few apps address the needs of the patients who could benefit the most. We also found that consumers' ratings were poor indications of apps' clinical utility or usability and that most apps did not respond appropriately when a user entered potentially dangerous health information. Going forward, data privacy and security will continue to be major concerns in the dissemination of mHealth apps.

Patient-Facing Mobile Apps to Treat High-Need, High-Cost Populations: A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: Self-management is essential to caring for high-need, high-cost (HNHC) populations. Advances in mobile phone technology coupled with increased availability and adoption of health-focused mobile apps have made self-management more achievable, but the extent and quality of the literature supporting their use is not well defined. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this review was to assess the breadth, quality, bias, and types of outcomes measured in the literature supporting the use of apps targeting HNHC populations. METHODS: Data sources included articles in PubMed and MEDLINE (National Center for Biotechnology Information), EMBASE (Elsevier), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (EBSCO), Web of Science (Thomson Reuters), and the NTIS (National Technical Information Service) Bibliographic Database (EBSCO) published since 2008. We selected studies involving use of patient-facing iOS or Android mobile health apps. Extraction was performed by 1 reviewer; 40 randomly selected articles were evaluated by 2 reviewers to assess agreement. RESULTS: Our final analysis included 175 studies. The populations most commonly targeted by apps included patients with obesity, physical handicaps, diabetes, older age, and dementia. Only 30.3% (53/175) of the apps studied in the reviewed literature were identifiable and available to the public through app stores. Many of the studies were cross-sectional analyses (42.9%, 75/175), small (median number of participants=31, interquartile range 11.0-207.2, maximum 11,690), or performed by an app's developers (61.1%, 107/175). Of the 175 studies, only 36 (20.6%, 36/175) studies evaluated a clinical outcome. CONCLUSIONS: Most apps described in the literature could not be located on the iOS or Android app stores, and existing research does not robustly evaluate the potential of mobile apps. Whereas apps may be useful in patients with chronic conditions, data do not support this yet. Although we had 2-3 reviewers to screen and assess abstract eligibility, only 1 reviewer abstracted the data. This is one limitation of our study. With respect to the 40 articles (22.9%, 40/175) that were assigned to 2 reviewers (of which 3 articles were excluded), inter-rater agreement was significant on the majority of items (17 of 30) but fair-to-moderate on others.

The Harvard Medical School Academic Innovations Collaborative: transforming primary care practice and education.

PROBLEM: Academic medical centers (AMCs) need new approaches to delivering higher-quality care at lower costs, and engaging trainees in the work of high-functioning primary care practices. APPROACH: In 2012, the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care, in partnership with with local AMCs, established an Academic Innovations Collaborative (AIC) with the goal of transforming primary care education and practice. This novel two-year learning collaborative consisted of hospital- and community-based primary care teaching practices, committed to building highly functional teams, managing populations, and engaging patients. The AIC built on models developed by Qualis Health and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, optimized for the local AMC context. Foundational elements included leadership engagement and development, application of rapid-cycle process improvement, and the creation of teams to care for defined patient populations. Nineteen practices across six AMCs participated, with nearly 260,000 patients and 450 resident learners. The collaborative offered three 1.5-day learning sessions each year featuring shared learning, practice coaches, and improvement measures, along with monthly data reporting, webinars, and site visits. OUTCOMES: Validated self-reports by transformation teams showed that practices made substantial improvement across all areas of change. Important factors for success included leadership development, practice-level resources, and engaging patients and trainees. NEXT STEPS: The AIC model shows promise as a path for AMCs to catalyze health system transformation through primary care improvement. In addition to further evaluating the impact of practice transformation, expansion will require support from AMCs and payers, and the application of similar approaches on a broader scale.

Redesigning primary care: a strategic vision to improve value by organizing around patients' needs.

Primary care in the United States currently struggles to attract new physicians and to garner investments in infrastructure required to meet patients' needs. We believe that the absence of a robust overall strategy for the entire spectrum of primary care is a fundamental cause of these struggles. To address the absence of an overall strategy and vision for primary care, we offer a framework based on value for patients to sustain and improve primary care practice. First, primary care should be organized around subgroups of patients with similar needs. Second, team-based services should be provided to each patient subgroup over its full care cycle. Third, each patient's outcomes and true costs should be measured by subgroup as a routine part of care. Fourth, payment should be modified to bundle reimbursement for each subgroup and reward value improvement. Finally, primary care patient subgroup teams should be integrated with relevant specialty providers. We believe that redesigning primary care using this framework can improve the ability of primary care to play its essential role in the health care system.