A Pharmacy Liaison-Patient Navigation Intervention to Reduce Inpatient and Emergency Department Utilization Among Primary Care Patients in a Medicaid Accountable Care Organization: A Pragmatic Trial

This is a pragmatic comparative effectiveness trial (n=364) to compare two screening and referral program models to address health-related social needs (HRSN) among the intermediate risk population of Boston Accountable Care Organization (BACO), a Medicaid ACO. The first study arm is THRIVE-Basic, the low-touch usual care model already implemented in all primary care clinics at Boston Medical Center (BMC) where patients are screened for HRSN and receive a printed paper resource referral guide. The second study arm is THRIVE+, which enhances the THRIVE-Basic model by engaging a pharmacy liaison-patient navigator to provide targeted navigation services and motivational interviewing to ensure connection to hospital- and community-based resources. The patient navigators will also interface directly with a partner community organization, Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD), to further help connect patients receiving THRIVE+ to community resources for HRSN. All patients in our study will receive pharmacy services via an existing Pharmacy Care Program. Patients in study arm 1 will be connected to a pharmacy liaison, which is standard clinical practice for intermediate risk ACO members in the BMC General Internal Medicine clinics. Patients in study arm 2 will receive systematic screening for and addressing of HRSN (THRIVE+) via a pharmacy liaison-patient navigator (a pharmacy technician trained as a patient navigator to deploy both pharmacy services and the THRIVE+ intervention), thereby avoiding duplication of services and multiple touches. Assignment to the study arms will be linked to existing Pharmacy Care Program enrollment activities and will be based on medical record number. The investigators' rationale for the study is that if patients' HRSN are addressed, patients will be better positioned to manage chronic conditions, adhere to preventive care plans, and less likely to use the emergency department (a conduit to inpatient care) for ambulatory care-sensitive conditions. The effectiveness of these two models will be compared with respect to alleviating HRSN and reducing acute health care utilization over a 12-month follow-up period.