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.

Perspectives on Implementing Quality Improvement Collaboratives Effectively: Qualitative Findings from the CHIPRA Quality Demonstration Grant Program.

BACKGROUND: The most frequently pursued intervention in the $100 million, 18-state Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (CHIPRA) quality demonstration (2010-2015) was quality improvement collaboratives, which 12 states offered to more than 300 primary care practices. A study was conducted to identify which aspects of these collaboratives were viewed by organizers and participants as working well and which were not. METHODS: Some 223 interviews were conducted in these states near the end of their collaboratives. Interview notes were coded and analyzed to identify trends. RESULTS: Aspects of collaboratives that interviewees valued were aimed at attracting participation, maintaining engagement, or facilitating learning. To attract participants, interviewees recommended offering maintenance-of-certification credits, aligning content with existing financial incentives, hiring a knowledgeable collaborative organizer of the same medical specialty as participants, and having national experts speak at meetings. Positively viewed approaches for maintaining engagement included meeting one-on-one with practices to articulate participation expectations in advance, tying disbursal of stipends to meeting participation expectations, and soliciting feedback and making mid-course adjustments. To facilitate learning, interviewees liked learning from other practices, interactive exercises, practical handouts, and meeting face-to-face with new referral partners. CONCLUSION: Prior studies have tended to focus on strategies to maintain engagement. The interviewees valued these features but also valued aspects of collaboratives that attracted participants in the first place and facilitated learning after participants were actively engaged. The findings suggest that a wider array of features may be important when developing or evaluating collaboratives. Collaborative organizers may benefit from incorporating the recommended collaborative features into their own collaboratives.

After The Demonstration: What States Sustained After the End of Federal Grants to Improve Children's Health Care Quality.

Introduction Under the CHIPRA Quality Demonstration Grant Program, CMS awarded $100 million through 10 grants that 18 state Medicaid agencies implemented between 2010 and 2015. The program's legislatively-mandated purpose was to evaluate promising ideas for improving the quality of children's health care provided through Medicaid and CHIP. As part of the program's multifaceted evaluation, this study examined the extent to which states sustained key program activities after the demonstration ended. Methods We identified 115 potentially sustainable elements within states' CHIPRA demonstrations and analyzed data from grantee reports and key informant interviews to assess sustainment outcomes and key influential factors. We also assessed sustainment of the projects' intellectual capital. Results 56% of potentially sustainable elements were sustained. Sustainment varied by topic area: Elements related to quality measure reporting and practice facilitation were more likely to be sustained than others, such as parent advisors. Broad contextual factors, the state's Medicaid environment, implementation partners' resources, and characteristics of the demonstration itself all shaped sustainment outcomes. Discussion Assessing sustainment of key elements of states' CHIPRA quality demonstration projects provides insight into the fates of the "promising ideas" that the grant program was designed to examine. As a result of the federal government's investment in this grant program, many demonstration states are in a strong position to extend and spread specific strategies for improving the quality of care for children in Medicaid and CHIP. Our findings provide insights for policymakers and providers working to improve the quality of health care for low income children.

What Factors Influence States' Capacity to Report Children's Health Care Quality Measures? A Multiple-Case Study.

Objectives The objective of this study was to describe factors that influence the ability of state Medicaid agencies to report the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) core set of children's health care quality measures (Child Core Set). Methods We conducted a multiple-case study of four high-performing states participating in the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) Quality Demonstration Grant Program: Illinois, Maine, Pennsylvania, and Oregon. Cases were purposively selected for their diverse measurement approaches and used data from 2010 to 2015, including 154 interviews, semiannual grant progress reports, and annual public reports on Child Core Set measures. We followed Yin's multiple-case study methodology to describe how and why each state increased the number of measures reported to CMS. Results All four states increased the number of Child Core Set measures reported to CMS during the grant period. Each took a different approach to reporting, depending on the available technical, organizational, and behavioral inputs in the state. Reporting capacity was influenced by a state's Medicaid data availability, ability to link to other state data systems, past experience with quality measurement, staff time and technical expertise, and demand for the measures. These factors were enhanced by CHIPRA Quality Demonstration grant funding and other federal capacity building activities, as hypothesized in our conceptual framework. These and other states have made progress reporting the Child Core Set since 2010. Conclusion With financial support and investment in state data systems and organizational factors, states can overcome challenges to reporting most of the Child Core Set measures.

Effects of organizational context on Lean implementation in five hospital systems.

BACKGROUND: Despite broad agreement among researchers about the value of examining how context shapes implementation of improvement programs and projects, limited attention has been paid to contextual effects on implementation of Lean. PURPOSE: To help reduce gaps in knowledge of effects of intraorganizational context, we researched Lean implementation initiatives in five organizations and examined 12 of their Lean rapid improvement projects. All projects aimed at improving clinical care delivery. METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: On the basis of the literature on Lean, innovation, and quality improvement, we developed a framework of factors likely to affect Lean implementation and outcomes. Drawing on the framework, we conducted semistructured interviews and applied qualitative codes to the transcribed interviews. Available documents, data, and observations supplemented the interviews. We constructed case studies of Lean implementation in each organization, compared implementation across organizations, and compared the 12 projects. FINDINGS: Intraorganizational characteristics affecting organization-wide Lean initiatives and often also shaping project outcomes included CEO commitment to Lean and active support for it, prior organizational capacity for quality improvement-based performance improvement, alignment of the Lean initiative with the organizational mission, dedication of resources and experts to Lean, staff training before and during projects, establishment of measurable and relevant project targets, planning of project sequences that enhance staff capabilities and commitment without overburdening them, and ensuring communication between project members and other affected staff. Dependence of projects on inputs of new information technology was a barrier to project success. Incremental implementation of Lean produced reported improvements in operational efficiency and occasionally in care quality. However, even under the relatively favorable circumstances prevailing in our study sites, incremental implementation did not readily change organizational culture. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: This study should alert researchers, managers, and teachers of management to ways that contexts shape Lean implementation and may affect other types of process redesign and quality improvement.

Nine states' use of collaboratives to improve children's health care quality in medicaid and CHIP.

We examine quality improvement (QI) collaboratives underway in 9 states participating in the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) Quality Demonstration Grant Program. A total of 147 diverse, child-serving practices were participating in the collaboratives. We conducted 256 semistructured interviews with key stakeholders from March to August 2012-2 years into the 5-year demonstration projects-and analyzed states' grant applications, operating plans, and progress reports. The collaboratives have multiple complex aims. In addition to developing patient-centered medical home (PCMH) capability, some states use collaboratives to familiarize practices with CMS's Initial Core Set of Children's Health Care Quality Measures, practice-level quality measurement, and improving QI knowledge and skills. The duration of the collaboratives is longer than other well-known collaborative models. Collaboratives also vary in their methods for targeting areas for improvement and strategies for motivating practice recruitment and engagement. States also vary with respect to the other strategies they use to support QI and PCMH development. All states supplement the collaboratives with practice facilitation; the majority utilized practice-level parent engagement, but only 4 used workforce augmentation (ie, providing care coordinators and QI specialists). Practice staff highly valued aspects of the collaboratives and supplemental strategies, including the opportunity to work with experts and other child-serving practices; states' efforts to provide stipends and align demonstration efforts with other professional requirements or programs; receipt of relevant, customized QI materials; opportunities to learn how care coordinators or QI specialists might work in their practice without the risk of hiring them; and satisfaction from learning more about quality measures, QI concepts and techniques, critical medical home components, and how to identify PCMH capacity and performance gaps. However, practice staff also reported a variety of challenges, including difficulty learning from other practices that have very different preexisting QI and PCMH capacity and patient populations, or that are working on different topic areas and measures; a sometimes overwhelming amount of materials and ideas covered during in-person meetings; difficulty keeping up with Webinars, calls, and Web sites/blogs; and trouble motivating and sharing information with other practice staff not attending collaborative activities. As the demonstration projects continue, states and the national evaluation team will learn more about how best to use collaboratives and complementary strategies to support child-serving practices in QI and PCMH development. States will also search for ways to sustain and spread these activities after the demonstration ends, if they prove effective.

Health reforms as examples of multilevel interventions in cancer care.

To increase access and improve system quality and efficiency, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act with sweeping changes to the nation's health-care system. Although not intended to be specific to cancer, the act's implementation will profoundly impact cancer care. Its components will influence multiple levels of the health-care environment including states, communities, health-care organizations, and individuals seeking care. To illustrate these influences, two reforms are considered: 1) accountable care organizations and 2) insurance-based reforms to gather evidence about effectiveness. We discuss these reforms using three facets of multilevel interventions: 1) their intended and unintended consequences, 2) the importance of timing, and 3) their implications for cancer. The success of complex health reforms requires understanding the scientific basis and evidence for carrying out such multilevel interventions. Conversely and equally important, successful implementation of multilevel interventions depends on understanding the political setting and goals of health-care reform.

Obtaining providers' 'buy-in' and establishing effective means of information exchange will be critical to HITECH's success.

In enacting the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Congress set ambitious goals for the nation to integrate information technology into health care delivery. The provisions called for the electronic exchange of health information and the adoption and meaningful use of health information technology in health care practices and hospitals. We examined the marketplace and regulatory forces that influence HITECH's success and identify outstanding challenges, some beyond the provisions' control. To reach HITECH's goals, providers and patients must be persuaded of the value of health information exchange and support its implementation. Privacy concerns and remaining technical challenges must also be overcome. Achieving HITECH's goals will require well-aligned incentives, both visionary and practical pursuit of exchange infrastructure, and realistic assumptions about how quickly such wholesale change can be accomplished. The use of metrics to show adoption proceeding at a reasonable pace, increased flow of data across parties, and evidence that care is improving, at least in areas with robust systems, will be essential to persuade stakeholders that the initiative is progressing well and warrants continued investment.

Performance-based payment incentives increase burden and blame for hospital nurses.

We interviewed hospital leaders and unit nurses in twenty-five hospitals between June and October 2008 to explore the effect of performance-based incentives. Interviewees expressed favorable impressions of the impact that incentive policies have on quality and safety. However, they raised concerns about the policies' effects on the nurse workforce. Their concerns included the belief that performance-based incentives would increase both the burden and the blame for nurses without corresponding improvements in staffing levels, work environment, salaries, or turnover. To maximize the intended policy impact without jeopardizing the workforce that holds the key to their adoption, we recommend that policy makers invest in implementation support, redesign hospital incentives to reward teamwork, and involve nursing leaders in the design of future incentive policies.

Qualitative methods in health services and management research: pockets of excellence and progress, but still a long way to go.

The 10-year systematic review of published health services and management research by Weiner et al. (2011) chronicles the contributions of qualitative methods, highlights areas of substantial progress, and identifies areas in need of more progress. This article (Devers, 2011) discusses possible reasons for lack of progress in some areas--related to the under-supply of well-trained qualitative researchers and more tangible demand for their research--and mechanisms for future improvement. To ensure a robust health services research toolbox, the field must take additional steps to provide stronger education and training in qualitative methods and more funding and publication opportunities. Given the rapidly changing health care system post the passage of national health reform and the chalresearch issues associated with it, the health services research and management field will not meet its future challenges with quantitative methods alone or with a half-empty toolbox.

Strategy, structure, and patient quality outcomes in ambulatory surgery centers (1997-2004).

The purpose of this study was to examine potential associations among ambulatory surgery centers' (ASCs) organizational strategy, structure, and quality performance. The authors obtained several large-scale, all-payer claims data sets for the 1997 to 2004 period. The authors operationalized quality performance as unplanned hospitalizations at 30 days after outpatient arthroscopy and colonoscopy procedures. The authors draw on related organizational theory, behavior, and health services research literatures to develop their conceptual framework and hypotheses and fitted fixed and random effects Poisson regression models with the count of unplanned hospitalizations. Consistent with the key hypotheses formulated, the findings suggest that higher levels of specialization and the volume of procedures may be associated with a decrease in unplanned hospitalizations at ASCs.

Health services research and data linkages: issues, methods, and directions for the future.

BACKGROUND: Research on pressing health services and policy issues requires access to complete, accurate, and timely patient and organizational data. AIM: This paper describes how administrative and health records (including electronic medical records) can be linked for comparative effectiveness and health services research. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We categorize the major agents (i.e., who owns and controls data and who carries out the data linkage) into three areas: (1) individual investigators; (2) government sponsored linked data bases; and (3) public-private partnerships that facilitate linkage of data owned by private organizations. We describe challenges that may be encountered in the linkage process, and the benefits of combining secondary databases with primary qualitative and quantitative sources. We use cancer care research to illustrate our points. RESULTS: To fill the gaps in the existing data infrastructure, additional steps are required to foster collaboration among institutions, researchers, and public and private components of the health care sector. Without such effort, independent researchers, governmental agencies, and nonprofit organizations are likely to continue building upon a fragmented and costly system with limited access. Discussion. Without the development and support for emerging information technologies across multiple health care settings, the potential for data collected for clinical and transactional purposes to benefit the research community and, ultimately, the patient population may go unrealized. CONCLUSION: The current environment is characterized by budget and technical challenges, but investments in data infrastructure are arguably cost-effective given the need to reform our health care system and to monitor the impact of health reform initiatives.

Patient-reported barriers to colorectal cancer screening: a mixed-methods analysis.

BACKGROUND: Barriers experienced by patients influence the uptake of colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. Prior research has quantified how often patients encounter these challenges but has generally not revealed their complex perspective and experience with barriers. PURPOSE: This mixed-methods study was conducted to understand current perspectives on CRC screening. METHODS: A two-part, mixed-methods study was conducted of primary care patients recruited from Virginia Ambulatory Care Outcomes Research Network practices. First, in June-July 2005 a survey was mailed to 660 patients aged 50-75 years posing an open-ended question about "the most important barrier" to CRC screening. Second, beginning in October 2005, seven gender- and largely race-specific focus groups involving 40 patients aged 45-75 years were conducted. Beginning in October 2005, survey verbatim responses were coded and quantitatively analyzed and focus group transcripts were qualitatively analyzed. RESULTS: Responses to the open-ended survey question, answered by 74% of respondents, identified fear and the bowel preparation as the most important barriers to screening. Only 1.6% of responses cited the absence of physician advice. Focus group participants cited similar issues and other previously reported barriers, but their remarks exposed the intricacies of complex barriers, such as fear, lack of information, time, the role of physicians, and access to care. Participants also cited barriers that have little documentation in the literature, such as low self-worth, "para-sexual" sensitivities, fatalism, negative past experiences with testing, and skepticism about the financial motivation behind screening recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: Mixed-methods analysis helps to disaggregate the complex nuances that influence patient behavior. In the present study, patients explained the web of influences on knowledge, motivation, and ability to undergo CRC screening, which clinicians and policymakers should consider in designing interventions to increase the level of screening.

Promoting primary care smoking-cessation support with quitlines: the QuitLink Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Counseling by clinicians promotes smoking cessation, but in most U.S. primary care practices, it is difficult to provide more than brief advice to quit in the course of routine work. Telephone quitlines can deliver effective intensive counseling, but few collaborate closely with clinicians. PURPOSE: This study aimed to determine whether cessation support in practices is enhanced by a systems approach, in partnership with quitlines. DESIGN: A cluster RCT was used. SETTING/PARTICIPANTS: Participants included 1817 adult smokers from 16 primary care practices in the Virginia Ambulatory Care Outcomes Research Network. INTERVENTION: An expanded tobacco-use "vital sign" intervention (identify smokers, advise cessation, and assess readiness to quit) that was combined with fax referral of preparation-stage smokers to a quitline providing feedback to practices was compared to a traditional tobacco-use vital sign alone. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The frequency of cessation support (in-office discussion of methods to quit or quitline referral) reported by patients in an exit survey (September 2005-July 2006, analyzed in 2008) was measured. RESULTS: The adjusted percentage of smokers who reported receiving cessation support differed by 12.5% in intervention and control practices (40.7% vs 28.2%, respectively; p<0.001). Both in-office discussion of methods to quit and quitline referral increased significantly with the intervention. Post hoc analysis revealed that the increase in cessation was stable for both patient gender and visit type and was more pronounced with patients aged 35-54 years and with male and more experienced clinicians. CONCLUSIONS: A systems approach to identifying smokers, advising and assessing readiness to quit, combined with a partnership with a quitline, increases delivery of cessation support for primary care patients beyond that accomplished by traditional tobacco-use vital sign screening alone. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT00112268.

Patient costs as a barrier to intensive health behavior counseling.

BACKGROUND: Although intensive health behavior counseling has been demonstrated to help patients lose weight and quit smoking, many payers offer limited coverage for such counseling. PURPOSE: This mixed-methods case study examined how coverage affected utilization of an electronic linkage system (eLinkS) to help adult patients obtain intensive health behavior counseling, provided through a collaboration of primary care practices and community programs. METHODS: Grant support enabled patients to obtain counseling at no cost, but funds were exhausted within 5 weeks as a result of an overwhelming response. To study the influence of cost as a barrier, referrals were resumed for an additional 3 weeks, but patients were required to pay for them. Use of eLinkS, level of clinician counseling and referrals, and patient interest in referrals were measured using electronic medical record data and patient and clinician interviews. RESULTS: When counseling was free, approximately one in five patients with an unhealthy behavior and an eLinkS prompt was referred for intensive counseling. However, when patient charges were instituted, referrals decreased by 97% (from 21.8% to 0.7%, p<0.001); clinicians asked fewer patients about health behaviors (37% vs 29%, p<0.001); clinicians offered fewer patients referrals (29% vs 6%, p<0.001); and patients were less interested in accepting referrals (76% vs 14%, p<0.001). In interviews, patients and clinicians cited cost as a major barrier. CONCLUSIONS: Coverage for intensive health behavior counseling is important to utilization, particularly for interventions that involve clinician-community partnerships. The potential public health benefits of such collaborations to reduce unhealthy behaviors justify the elimination of financial barriers (e.g., copayments) by payers.

Variations in inpatient mortality among hospitals in different system types, 1995 to 2000.

BACKGROUND: Relatively few studies focused on the impact of system formation and hospital merger on quality, and these studies reported typically little or no quality effect. OBJECTIVE: To study associations among 5 main types of health systems--centralized, centralized physician/insurance, moderately centralized, decentralized, and independent--and inpatient mortality from acute myocardial infarction (AMI), congestive heart failure, stroke, and pneumonia. DATA AND METHODS: Panel data (1995-2000) were assembled from 11 states and multiple sources: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality State Inpatient Database, American Hospital Association Annual Surveys, Area Resource File, HMO InterStudy, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. We applied a panel study design with fixed effects models using information on variation within hospitals. RESULTS: We found that centralized health systems are associated with lower AMI, congestive heart failure, and pneumonia mortality. Independent hospital systems had better AMI quality outcomes than centralized physician/insurance and moderately centralized health systems. We found no difference in inpatient mortality among system types for the stroke outcome. Thus, for certain types of clinical service lines and patients, hospital system type matters. Research that focuses only on system membership may mask the impact of system type on the quality of care.

An electronic linkage system for health behavior counseling effect on delivery of the 5A's.

BACKGROUND: A variety of factors limit the ability of clinicians to offer intensive counseling to patients with unhealthy behaviors, and few patients (2%-5%) are referred to the community counseling resources that do offer such assistance. A system that could increase referrals through an efficient collaborative partnership between community programs and clinicians could have major public health implications; such was the subject of this feasibility evaluation. METHODS: At nine primary care practices, an electronic linkage system (eLinkS) was instituted to promote health behavior counseling and to automate patient referrals to community counseling services. Patients were offered 9 months of free counseling for weight loss, smoking cessation, and problem drinking at a choice of venues: group counseling, telephone counseling, computer care, and usual care. The delivery of behavioral counseling, measured by the 5A's (ask, address, advise, assess, agree, arrange) and patients' reported experiences with eLinkS, was examined. RESULTS: For 5 weeks eLinkS was used, until high referral volumes depleted counseling funds. Of the 5679 patients visiting the practices, 71% had an unhealthy behavior. Of these patients, 10% were referred for intensive counseling from a community program, most often for weight loss. Counseling and referrals occurred regardless of visit type--wellness, acute, or chronic care. eLinkS was used more often for middle-aged adults and women and by more-experienced clinicians. CONCLUSIONS: The intervention increased the rate at which patients were referred for intensive behavioral counseling compared to current practice norms. Given the evidence that intensive counseling is more effective in promoting behavior change, implementing eLinkS could have substantial public health benefits.

Qualitative data analysis for health services research: developing taxonomy, themes, and theory.

OBJECTIVE: To provide practical strategies for conducting and evaluating analyses of qualitative data applicable for health services researchers. DATA SOURCES AND DESIGN: We draw on extant qualitative methodological literature to describe practical approaches to qualitative data analysis. Approaches to data analysis vary by discipline and analytic tradition; however, we focus on qualitative data analysis that has as a goal the generation of taxonomy, themes, and theory germane to health services research. PRINCIPLE FINDINGS: We describe an approach to qualitative data analysis that applies the principles of inductive reasoning while also employing predetermined code types to guide data analysis and interpretation. These code types (conceptual, relationship, perspective, participant characteristics, and setting codes) define a structure that is appropriate for generation of taxonomy, themes, and theory. Conceptual codes and subcodes facilitate the development of taxonomies. Relationship and perspective codes facilitate the development of themes and theory. Intersectional analyses with data coded for participant characteristics and setting codes can facilitate comparative analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Qualitative inquiry can improve the description and explanation of complex, real-world phenomena pertinent to health services research. Greater understanding of the processes of qualitative data analysis can be helpful for health services researchers as they use these methods themselves or collaborate with qualitative researchers from a wide range of disciplines.

A practice-sponsored Web site to help patients pursue healthy behaviors: an ACORN study.

PURPOSE: We tested whether patients are more likely to pursue healthy behaviors (eg, physical activity, smoking cessation) if referred to a tailored Web site that provides valuable information for behavior change. METHODS: In a 9-month pre-post comparison with nonrandomized control practices, 6 family practices (4 intervention, 2 control) encouraged adults with unhealthy behaviors to visit the Web site. For patients from intervention practices, the Web site offered tailored health advice, a library of national and local resources, and printouts for clinicians. For patients from control practices, the Web site offered static information pages. Patient surveys assessed stage of change and health behaviors at baseline and follow-up (at 1 and 4 months), Web site use, and satisfaction. RESULTS: During the 9 months, 932 patients (4% of adults attending the practice) visited the Web site, and 273 completed the questionnaires. More than 50% wanted physician assistance with health behaviors. Stage of change advanced and health behaviors improved in both intervention and control groups. Intervention patients reported greater net improvements at 1 month, although the differences approached significance only for physical activity and readiness to change dietary fat intake. Patients expressed satisfaction with the Web site but wished it provided more detailed information and greater interactivity with clinicians. CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians face growing pressure to offer patients good information on health promotion and other health care topics. Referring patients to a well-designed Web site that offers access to the world's best information is an appealing alternative to offering handouts or impromptu advice. Interactive Web sites can facilitate behavior change and can interface with electronic health records. Determining whether referral to an informative Web site improves health outcomes is a methodological challenge, but the larger question is whether information alone is sufficient to promote behavior change. Web sites are more likely to be effective as part of a suite of tools that incorporate personal assistance.