Aligning Patients and Their Primary Care Providers

Not Applicable

Completed

Conditions: Primary Health Care
Quality of Health Care
Comorbidity
Communication
Medical Informatics Applications

Brief Summary: This project focuses on improving the patient-provider primary care visit interaction by addressing the need to align patient and provider priorities in a way that incorporates patients' goals and preferences while supporting the clinical work of their providers.

Detailed Description: The aim of this clinical trial is to enroll new and/or complex patients and their physicians in a 12-month randomized study. At each scheduled primary care visit during the trial period, Intervention Patients will be provided with a waiting room Tablet loaded with the "Visit Planner" intervention tool designed to support prioritization and discussion of top health care concerns. Control Patients will be given a written educational handout to review. Patient-centered outcomes will be obtained at baseline and after visits using validated survey instruments. Clinical outcomes focus on differences in quality of care. If successful, this approach to aligning patient and provider visit priorities can potentially be disseminated and adapted to a wide variety of different care settings.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria

Kaiser Permanente member with an assigned primary care provider, with at least one quality care gap at baseline (overdue screening tests, elevated risk factor levels, sub-optimal adherence to chronically prescribed medicines, current smoker)
Patients must be either:
- 1. relatively new to their provider (0-3 visits in past 18 months) or if associated with their provider for > 18 months,
- 1. have evidence for medical complexity (4 or more prescribed medicines, in a chronic disease management program, or recently admitted to hospital or emergency department)

Exclusion Criteria

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Aggregate Measure of Guideline-Based Clinical Care Gaps	12 months	All patients enrolled in the study will have one or more guideline-based care gaps at baseline. Care gaps are defined as: overdue for cancer screening (mammography, colorectal cancer), overdue for chronic disease monitoring (blood pressure, HbA1c), above goal for chronic disease (SBP \> 140, HbA1c \> 8%), or medication related (not prescribed a statin if clinically indicated, not prescribed medicine for osteoporosis if indicated, \< 80% adherence to medication for diabetes, hypertension, or hyperlipidemia), or current smoker. The investigators will assess % of patients resolving baseline clinical care gaps after 12 months. The aggregate outcome will be defined as yes/no resolution of baseline care gap. The study arms will be compared using an aggregate measure of these guideline-based clinical care gaps.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Patient-reported Outcomes	Within 1 week of primary care study visit	Telephone survey will be conducted within 1 week of visit using validated questionnaire items that assess patient-provider communication and patient satisfaction with care