Patient Priority Care for Older Adults With Multiple Chronic Conditions Achieved Through Primary and Specialty Care Alignment

Healthcare for older adults with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) is burdensome and of uncertain benefit, resulting in unwanted and unhelpful care. Patient Priorities Care (PPC) is an approach that aligns care with patients' health priorities (i.e. the health outcomes most desired given the healthcare each is willing and able to receive). PPC offers the opportunity to increase value by improving both outputs (desired health outcomes) and inputs (healthcare preferences) for these major users of healthcare.

We will employ a quasi-experimental, usual care (UC) group design, involving 2 primary care sites (1 PPC and 1 UC. Patients are assigned to intervention or usual care arms based on their primary care practice location. We will use analytic techniques (e.g., inverse propensity score weighting) designed to reduce selection bias and balance PPC and UC sites in terms of baseline characteristics. Data collection will occur through quantitative and qualitative interviews and health encounter information in the Electric Health Record(EHR).

Patient Priorities Care requires the elicitation and documentation of patient health outcome goals and care preferences and the alignment of clinical care with goals and priorities to achieve patients' health outcome goals and reduce the burden of multi-morbidity. Participants will be enrolled in the Patient Priorities Care Program and speak with a trained health priorities facilitator to elicit their healthcare preferences and health outcome goals, which together constitute their health priorities. This information will be documented, entered into the EHR, and shared with the clinicians who will then use the Patient Priorities Care approach with patients to inform and guide treatment decisions. Patients will participate in the program and be followed for up to one year from the health priorities identification visit.

To determine the value of PPC, comparable primary care sites within the Cleveland Clinic will be assigned to PPC or Usual care (UC). Clinicians and staff at the PPC site will be trained to identify and align decision-making with the health priorities of older adults with MCCs. Value will be compared using patient and provider-reported outcomes, healthcare utilization, and possibly costs at PPC and UC sites.

The ultimate goal of our work is to implement and evaluate this approach to care for older adults with multiple chronic conditions that focuses on what matters most to them and is less fragmented and burdensome, resulting in better quality and outcomes at lower cost. This study will focus on evaluating practice change at test sites at the Cleveland Clinic.