Piloting Acute Care to Primary Care Linkage of Safety Net Patients

The investigators plan to implement a pilot linkage program in which trauma center based care facilitators will use a population-based recruitment strategy to facilitate outpatient follow-up for acutely injured trauma center inpatients and emergency department patients. All patients recruited into the trial will be low income patients with one or more of the following characteristics: being uninsured, low income older adults, low income mothers, and other high risk individuals who lack health insurance. Patients will be linked for care to one of the community health centers participating in Washington State.

In phase I, patients will be recruited from the trauma center inpatient trauma surgery service and emergency departments. In phase one, no randomization will occur; patients will be linked to one of the community health centers. Patients who consent to the protocol will be assessed in the surgical inpatient units or emergency department. After the baseline assessment, all patients will be immediately assigned a bachelor's, MSW, or RN level care manager. The care managers will elicit and address posttraumatic concerns, and attempt linkage of patients to community programs. Care managers may also deliver motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral therapy interventions. Patient may also be linked to psychopharmacologic interventions targeting PTSD. Follow-up assessments will occur in the weeks and months after the injury and will assess patterns of health service utilization and symptomatic outcomes. Phase I will establish the feasibility of recruitment and follow-up, acceptability of care management for patients, as well as the pragmatics of linkage to community programs.

Piloting in phase II will depend on the results of phase I; the phase II pilot will build and extend upon phase I. In phase II, patients will be randomized to either intervention or control conditions. Patients randomized to the intervention condition will be met by a care manager who may address patients' initial needs and concerns. Care managers may also deliver Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy interventions. Patients may also be linked to psychopharmacologic interventions targeting PTSD. The care manager will attempt to link patients to participating community health centers. Linkages may occur by the telephone, or through web-based clinical registry tools that are under development by the intervention team. Some linkages may occur in person. To determine if intervention patients are successfully linked more frequently than controls, all patients will be followed from the time of designation at hospital admission to outpatient primary care appointments. Follow-up outcome assessments will occur in the weeks and months post-injury and will includes assessments of patterns of health service utilization, function, and symptomatic outcomes.