Aligning Resources to Care for Homeless Veterans (ARCH)

Background:

Primary care, and specifically primary care directed to homeless Veterans represents an opportunity to engage individuals in care, address unmet health needs and facilitate receipt of services necessary to exit homelessness. However, it is unclear what the best and most cost-efficient approach is to providing this care. Past research suggests two alternative approaches to organizing and delivering primary care to homeless Veterans: (1) structurally realigned and organized care and (2) embedded peer mentoring. The overall purpose of our research is to compare and contrast outcomes from 4 different adaptations and combinations of primary care delivery to homeless Veterans within the construct of the Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) model for primary care.

Objectives:

1. To test whether a peer mentor intervention embedded in the Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) model will be more effective than usual-care PACT or, in a separate randomized controlled trial, within a homeless-oriented PACT (H-PACT) model, in reducing emergency department use and hospitalizations, improving chronic disease management, and increasing participation in homeless programming.
2. To compare clinical outcomes, service use, treatment engagement, self-efficacy, and patient satisfaction of participants in usual care-PACT with and without peer mentoring to H-PACT with and without peer mentoring.
3. To determine differential costs and cost offsets associated with each PACT model adaptation in relation to care outcomes for homeless Veterans.
4. To determine whether a structurally adapted health care delivery model for homeless Veterans (homeless PACT) affects treatment engagement, as measured by utilization of services over time, compared with assignment to a general population Patient Aligned Care Team or no primary care assignment.

Methods: