NCT05050643

High-Risk Veteran Initiative

Improving Care for Complex, High-Risk Patients in Primary Care (QUE 20-018)

• Status: Active Not Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 17 (actual)
• Sponsor: VA Office of Research and Development · Federal
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Veterans at high-risk for hospitalization, including those with complex care needs, represent a large population of VHA patients who often do not receive evidence-based primary care practices that would help them avoid the hospital and improve their health. The high-RIsk VETerans (RIVET) Program will implement evidence-based practices that can support VHA Primary Care teams to deliver more comprehensive and patient-centered care, better strategies to manage medications, and avoid unnecessary hospitalizations. The RIVET Program is designed to find the most effective approaches to increasing use of evidence-based practices for high-risk Veterans in primary care, provide rapid data feedback to VHA on high-risk patient care, build capacity for the implementation of evidence-based practices, and train future leaders in high-risk Veteran care.

Detailed description

The top 5% of Veterans at the highest risk for hospitalizations account for almost 50% of VHA healthcare costs, have significant multimorbidity, and are also at high risk for poor health outcomes. In the VHA, most (88%) high-risk patients are managed by general primary care teams (i.e., Patient-Aligned Care Teams; PACTs). Few PACTs, however, have implemented evidence-based practices (EBPs) known to address the most common issues among high-risk Veterans. Some evidence indicates that usual implementation strategies, such as dissemination of toolkits and training are not effective for improving uptake of EBPs. The most effective implementation strategies to achieve evidence-based care for high-risk patients, however, are unknown. The overall impact goal of the high-RIsk VETerans (RIVET) QUERI Program is to improve VHA primary care capacity to provide comprehensive, evidence-based care for complex, high-risk Veterans. The investigators will test 2 implementation strategies to evaluate their impact on the uptake of two separate EBPs. These EPBs are 1) Comprehensive Assessment and Care Planning (CACP), and 2) Phone-Based Health Coaching for Medication Adherence (HCMA). CACP is based on the Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment and guides teams in systematically addressing patients' cognitive, functional, and social needs through a comprehensive care plan. HCMA addresses common challenges to medication adherence using a patient-centered approach through virtual encounters. Both comprehensive assessments and health coaching have demonstrated efficacy in randomized, controlled trials and have been implemented by two of the national partners in geriatrics and Whole Health teams. However, both EBPs have had low uptake in primary care. Implementing these practices in primary care has the potential to improve quality of care for the large majority of high-risk Veterans. The investigators will conduct a mixed methods type 3 hybrid effectiveness-implementation design to test the effectiveness of EBQI-IC and EBQI-LC versus usual care (national tool dissemination and training efforts) in at least 16 sites in multiple VISNs using a Concurrent Stepped Wedge design (Aim 2). The primary outcome is proportion of eligible high-risk patients that receive each EBP. The investigators will use the Practical, Robust Implementation and Sustainability Model (PRISM) framework to compare and evaluate Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and costs. The investigators will then assess the Maintenance/sustainment and spread of both EBPs in primary care across all sites after the active 18-month implementation period (Aim 3).

Conditions

• Multimorbidity

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	EBQI-IC	Individual (ongoing) consultation (IC), often described as coaching or supervision, is endorsed by implementation experts as an effective implementation strategy
OTHER	EBQI-LC	A Learning Collaborative is a systematic approach to process improvement based on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Breakthrough Series Collaborative model. During the Collaborative, organizations will test and implement system changes and measure their impact. They will share their experiences to accelerate learning and broader implementation of best practices.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-07-23
• Primary completion: 2025-09-30
• Completion: 2026-12-30
• First posted: 2021-09-20
• Last updated: 2025-10-23

Locations

3 sites across 1 country: United States