Integrating Community Health Workers' Dual Clinic-Community Role in Safety-Net Primary Care: Implementation Lessons from a Pragmatic Diabetes-Prevention Trial.

BACKGROUND: Over a third of US adults carry a diagnosis of prediabetes, 70% of whom may progress to type 2 diabetes mellitus ("diabetes"). Community health workers (CHWs) can help patients undertake healthy behavior to prevent diabetes. However, there is limited guidance to integrate CHWs in primary care, specifically to address CHWs' dual clinic-based and community-oriented role. OBJECTIVE: Using evidence from CHWs' adaptations of a diabetes-prevention intervention in safety-net hospitals in New York City, we examine the nature, intent, and possible consequences of CHWs' actions on program fidelity. We propose strategies for integrating CHWs in primary care. DESIGN: Case study drawing on the Model for Adaptation Design and Impact (MADI) to analyze CHWs' actions during implementation of CHORD (Community Health Outreach to Reduce Diabetes), a cluster-randomized pragmatic trial (2017-2022) at Manhattan VA and Bellevue Hospital. PARTICIPANTS: CHWs and clinicians in the CHORD study, with a focus in this analysis on CHWs. APPROACH: Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussion with CHWs (n=4); semi-structured interviews with clinicians (n=17). Interpretivist approach to explain CHWs' adaptations using a mix of inductive and deductive analysis. KEY RESULTS: CHWs' adaptations extended the intervention in three ways: by extending social assistance, healthcare access, and operational tasks. The adaptations were intended to improve fit, reach, and retention, but likely had ripple effects on implementation outcomes. CHWs' focus on patients' complex social needs could divert them from judiciously managing their caseload. CONCLUSIONS: CHWs' community knowledge can support patient engagement, but overextension of social assistance may detract from protocolized health-coaching goals. CHW programs in primary care should explicitly delineate CHWs' non-health support to patients, include multiprofessional teams or partnerships with community-based organizations, establish formal communication between CHWs and clinicians, and institute mechanisms to review and iterate CHWs' work to resolve challenges in their community-oriented role.

Addressing the nation's physician workforce needs: The Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) recommendations on graduate medical education reform.

The Graduate Medical Education (GME) system in the United States (US) has garnered worldwide respect, graduating over 25,000 new physicians from over 8,000 residency and fellowship programs annually. GME is the portal of entry to medical practice and licensure in the US, and the pathway through which resident physicians develop the competence to practice independently and further develop their career plans. The number and specialty distribution of available GME positions shapes the overall composition of our national workforce; however, GME is failing to provide appropriate programs that support the delivery of our society's system of healthcare. This paper, prepared by the Health Policy Education Subcommittee of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and unanimously endorsed by SGIM's Council, outlines a set of recommendations on how to reform the GME system to best prepare a physician workforce that can provide high quality, high value, population-based, and patient-centered health care, aligned with the dynamic needs of our nation's healthcare delivery system. These recommendations include: accurate workforce needs assessment, broadened GME funding sources, increased transparency of the use of GME dollars, and implementation of incentives to increase the accountability of GME-funded programs for the preparation and specialty selection of their program graduates.

Health care reform and the primary care workforce bottleneck.

To establish and sustain the high-performing health care system envisioned in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), current provisions in the law to strengthen the primary care workforce must be funded, implemented, and tested. However, the United States is heading towards a severe primary care workforce bottleneck due to ballooning demand and vanishing supply. Demand will be fueled by the "silver tsunami" of 80 million Americans retiring over the next 20 years and the expanded insurance coverage for 32 million Americans in the ACA. The primary care workforce is declining because of decreased production and accelerated attrition. To mitigate the looming primary care bottleneck, even bolder policies will be needed to attract, train, and sustain a sufficient number of primary care professionals. General internists must continue their vital leadership in this effort.