Integrating Alcohol-Related Prevention and Treatment Into Primary Care: A Cluster Randomized Implementation Trial.

Importance: Unhealthy alcohol use is common and affects morbidity and mortality but is often neglected in medical settings, despite guidelines for both prevention and treatment. Objective: To test an implementation intervention to increase (1) population-based alcohol-related prevention with brief interventions and (2) treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD) in primary care implemented with a broader program of behavioral health integration. Design, Setting, and Participants: The Sustained Patient-Centered Alcohol-Related Care (SPARC) trial was a stepped-wedge cluster randomized implementation trial, including 22 primary care practices in an integrated health system in Washington state. Participants consisted of all adult patients (aged ≥18 years) with primary care visits from January 2015 to July 2018. Data were analyzed from August 2018 to March 2021. Interventions: The implementation intervention included 3 strategies: practice facilitation; electronic health record decision support; and performance feedback. Practices were randomly assigned launch dates, which placed them in 1 of 7 waves and defined the start of the practice's intervention period. Main Outcomes and Measures: Coprimary outcomes for prevention and AUD treatment were (1) the proportion of patients who had unhealthy alcohol use and brief intervention documented in the electronic health record (brief intervention) for prevention and (2) the proportion of patients who had newly diagnosed AUD and engaged in AUD treatment (AUD treatment engagement). Analyses compared monthly rates of primary and intermediate outcomes (eg, screening, diagnosis, treatment initiation) among all patients who visited primary care during usual care and intervention periods using mixed-effects regression. Results: A total of 333 596 patients visited primary care (mean [SD] age, 48 [18] years; 193 583 [58%] female; 234 764 [70%] White individuals). The proportion with brief intervention was higher during SPARC intervention than usual care periods (57 vs 11 per 10 000 patients per month; P < .001). The proportion with AUD treatment engagement did not differ during intervention and usual care (1.4 vs 1.8 per 10 000 patients; P = .30). The intervention increased intermediate outcomes: screening (83.2% vs 20.8%; P < .001), new AUD diagnosis (33.8 vs 28.8 per 10 000; P = .003), and treatment initiation (7.8 vs 6.2 per 10 000; P = .04). Conclusions and Relevance: In this stepped-wedge cluster randomized implementation trial, the SPARC intervention resulted in modest increases in prevention (brief intervention) but not AUD treatment engagement in primary care, despite important increases in screening, new diagnoses, and treatment initiation. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02675777.

Opioid use disorder from poppy seed tea successfully treated with buprenorphine in primary care: a case report.

BACKGROUND: Poppy seeds contain morphine and other opioid alkaloids and are commercially available in the United States. Users of poppy seed tea (PST) can consume several hundred morphine milligram equivalents per day, and opioid dependence from PST use can develop. We report a case of a patient with chronic pain and PST use leading to opioid use disorder (OUD). This case represents the first published report of OUD from PST successfully treated with buprenorphine (BUP) in a primary care setting. The provider in this case used a unique model of care with an opioid prescribing support team to deliver safe and effective care. CASE PRESENTATION: A 47-year-old man with chronic pain and prescription opioid use presented to primary care to discuss a flare of shoulder pain, and revealed in subsequent conversation a long-standing use of PST to supplement pain control. Attempts at cessation resulted in severe withdrawal symptoms, leading to return to PST use. The primary care provider consulted the VA Puget Sound SUpporting Primary care Providers in Opioid Risk reduction and Treatment (SUPPORT) team to evaluate the patient for OUD. The patient discontinued all opioids, and initiated BUP under the supervision of the primary care provider. He remained on a stable dosage, without relapse, 24 months later. CONCLUSIONS: PST, which can be made through purchase of readily available poppy pods, carries risk for development of OUD and overdose. Herein we highlight the utility of a primary care opioid prescribing support team in empowering a primary care provider to prescribe BUP to treat a patient with complex OUD.

Costs of using evidence-based implementation strategies for behavioral health integration in a large primary care system.

OBJECTIVE: To describe the cost of using evidence-based implementation strategies for sustained behavioral health integration (BHI) involving population-based screening, assessment, and identification at 25 primary care sites of Kaiser Permanente Washington (2015-2018). DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING: Project records, surveys, Bureau of Labor Statistics compensation data. STUDY DESIGN: Labor and nonlabor costs incurred by three implementation strategies: practice coaching, electronic health records clinical decision support, and performance feedback. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS: Personnel time spent on these strategies was estimated for five broad roles: (a) project leaders and administrative support, (b) practice coaches, (c) clinical decision support programmers, (d) performance metric programmers, and (e) primary care local implementation team members. PRINCIPAL FINDING: Implementation involved 286 persons, 18 131 person-hours, costing $1 587 139 or $5 per primary care visit with screening or $38 per primary care visit identifying depression, suicidal thoughts and/or alcohol or substance use disorders, in a single year. The majority of person-hours was devoted to project leadership (35%) and practice coaches (34%), and 36% of costs were for the first three sites. CONCLUSIONS: When spread across patients screened in a single year, BHI implementation costs were well within the range for commonly used diagnostic assessments in primary care (eg, laboratory tests). This suggests that implementation costs alone should not be a substantial barrier to population-based BHI.

Integration of screening, assessment, and treatment for cannabis and other drug use disorders in primary care: An evaluation in three pilot sites.

BACKGROUND: This pilot study evaluated whether use of evidence-based implementation strategies to integrate care for cannabis and other drug use into primary care (PC) as part of Behavioral Health Integration (BHI) increased diagnosis and treatment of substance use disorders (SUDs). METHODS: Patients who visited the three pilot PC sites were eligible. Implementation strategies included practice coaching, electronic health record decision support, and performance feedback (3/2015-4/2016). BHI introduced annual screening for past-year cannabis and other drug use, a Symptom Checklist for DSM-5 SUDs, and shared decision-making about treatment options. Main analyses tested whether the proportions of PC patients diagnosed with, and treated for, new cannabis or other drug use disorders (CUDs and DUDs, respectively), differed significantly pre- and post-implementation. RESULTS: Of 39,599 eligible patients, 57% and 59% were screened for cannabis and other drug use, respectively. Among PC patients reporting daily cannabis use (2%) or any drug use (1%), 51% and 37%, respectively, completed an SUD Symptom Checklist. The proportion of PC patients with newly diagnosed CUD increased significantly post-implementation (5 v 17 per 10,000 patients, p < 0.0001), but not other DUDs (10 vs 13 per 10,000, p = 0.24). The proportion treated for newly diagnosed CUDs did not increase post-implementation (1 vs 1 per 10,000, p = 0.80), but did for those treated for newly diagnosed other DUDs (1 vs 3 per 10,000, p = 0.038). CONCLUSIONS: A pilot implementation of BHI to increase routine screening and assessment for SUDs was associated with increased new CUD diagnoses and a small increase in treatment of new other DUDs.