Protocol Assignment Forum: Organizational Culture, Behavior

Describe the organizational and/or delivery system environment in which your intervention will take place.  The pilot intervention will take place in one of the San Francisco County Department of Public Health’s Community Behavioral Health Service’s clinics, the UCSF Citywide Focus Clinic.  The cluster randomized trial will occur within all of the SF DPH CBHS clinics.

Based on Shortell’s 4 domains of organizational change, identify organizational barriers that could potentially impede successful implementation of your proposed intervention.  According to Shortell’s 4 domains of organizational change, the following are the organizational barriers that could potentially impede successful implementation of my proposed intervention:

1. Clinical Quality Performance: It was only recently recommended that CBHS medical directors monitor their staff’s performance of regularly monitoring of vital signs (height, weight, blood pressure) of clients annually (4/8/14).  There is no current formal QI monitoring of either metabolic screening or primary care physician.  As such, there is also no monitoring of the actual metabolic screening labs results (e.g., evidence of dyslipidemia or prediabetes/diabetes) or how well these abnormalities are being treated. This lack of monitoring at the systemic level could impede successful implementation of my proposed intervention.  However, I do believe that this type of quality monitoring is slowly becoming more commonplace in CBHS.
2. Patient Satisfaction:  It is complicated to obtain information about patient satisfaction from people with severe mental illness because the illnesses themselves can sometimes influence how they view “satisfaction” in a service. 
3. Organizational Learning:  There are several barriers to organizational learning that could influence my proposed intervention, including: a) Access to electronic laboratory results is currently unavailable to CBHS providers; b) Although there is usually little provider turnover in CBHS, there have been significant recent changes in leadership and staff given significant DPH transformation in the setting of health care reform; c) the CBHS wants to encourage adaptability, but I would say that most providers view being “adaptable” as getting overloaded with more work; and d) there is impaired communication across roles in DPH (Primary care and mental health), but this is improving with an Integration of Care group in CBHS.
4. Financial Performance: The fact that visits targeting management of metabolic disorders by psychiatrists might not be reimbursable is a barrier.  In addition, CBHS is chronically highly over-budget and threatens cutting services every budget season.

Using the same 4-domain model, describe how your intervention plan can take advantage of organizational strengths OR propose practical methods for addressing these barriers within your program.

1. Clinical Quality Performance: The CRANIUM plan to monitor metabolic screening performance at the provider and clinic-level will be an extension of the recent CBHS medical director’s mandate to monitor staff’s performance of vital signs (height, weight, blood pressure) (4/8/14).  CRANIUM also plans to provide some support (a registry) to help track this monitoring and make it easier for clinicians.
2. Patient Satisfaction: This study will specifically query patients on their satisfaction with the CRANIUM intervention.  In fact, if the CRANIUM intervention is preferred by patients, it could be extremely beneficial in this setting of health care reform.
3. Organizational Learning:  The CRANIUM intervention includes a Web-based clinical decision support tool that will facilitate easy entry of laboratory results and decisions on management.  CRANIUM also improves communication between roles in DPH (between psychiatry and primary care) via the PCP e-consult.
4. Financial Performance: CRANIUM will provide providers (and most importantly medical directors) with specific reassurance that performing these tasks (expanding their scope of practice) is billable and therefore will generate revenue for CBHS.  

Background for the rest of the protocol is below (in blue):

The CRANIUM Protocol to Improve Diabetes Screening and Preliminary Treatment in Community Mental Health Clinics

Translating Evidence

A.     What evidence are you proposing to translate into practice?  I am proposing improving annual metabolic screening of people taking second-generation antipsychotic medications, who are being served in community mental health clinics.  I may try to find other models in the HIV literature where they are also trying to improve metabolic screening

1. Justify that this evidence is “ready for translation.”  The evidence is ready for translation because there have been national guidelines recommended by the American Diabetes Association and the American Psychiatric Association (ADA 2004).  Multiple RCTs and observational studies have shown that most second-generation antipsychotic medications increase metabolic risk.  Expert opinion recommends this annual screening given this increased risk.
2. Identify a single, key behavior change target for your translational activity. The behavioral target is annual metabolic screening by psychiatrists in community mental health clinics.  Basically, I want to increase the number of patients who obtain guideline-recommended annual metabolic screening in community mental health clinics.  At minimum, this would involve annual BMI, blood pressure, and fasting lipid/glucose monitoring.  Notably, I also plan to link screening to treatment, so will be encouraging preliminary medication treatment (e.g., statins) for any abnormal screening tests.
3. Conduct a “gap analysis” of your target behavior.  Look to diverse sources for “best guess” estimates if specific measures are not available. 10 years after the ADA/APA guidelines, metabolic screening rates are still only about 30% (Morrato 2010; Mangurian in manuscript form).

B.  What is the quality (performance) gap?  Only 30% of people with severe mental illness receive metabolic screening by their physicians (Morrato 2010).  Therefore, there is a 70% gap in quality of care for this vulnerable population.  Ideally, I would like to eliminate this gap altogether.  Through my intervention, I aim to realistically reduce this gap for an additional 30% of the population, leaving a gap of 40%.

C.  What is the outcome gap? People with severe mental illness taking these medications die 25 years earlier than the general population (Colton 2006).  Adjusting for age, among Medicaid recipients in six states, the number of deaths among people with SMI ranged from 1.2-4.9 times higher than the general population (Colton 2006).  The proportion of deaths among due to heart disease were comparable between the general population and those with SMI (~30%) (Colton 2006)

D.  Is there evidence that changing performance will improve health (clinical outcomes)?  There is strong evidence that early detection and treatment of prediabetes, diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia will reduce cardiovascular disease.  Unfortunately, there is no evidence to date about this prevention effort among people with severe mental illness.

References:

Colton CW, et al.  Congruencies in increased mortality rates, years of potential life lost, and causes of death among public mental health clients in eight states. Prev Chronic Dis. 2006;3(2):A42.

Morrato EH, et al.  Metabolic testing rates in 3 state Medicaid programs after FDA warnings and ADA/APA recommendations for second-generation antipsychotic drugs.  Arch Gen Psychiatry 2010; 67(1):17-24. 

American Diabetes Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, North American Association for the Study of Obesity. Consensus development conference on antipsychotic drugs and obesity and diabetes. Diabetes Care 2004; 27: 596– 601.

Mangurian C, et al.  Diabetes screening and prevalence among a cohort of Medicaid recipients with severe mental illness in California. In Manuscript form.

Community Engagement

 1.     Define the communit(ies) for your project and explain why each is a stakeholder for your study.

• Psychiatrists: These are the people who will be asked to change their behavior.
• Primary care providers: These are the people who will be referred to and potentially have their “turf” challenged.
• Consumers (patients) with SMI:  These are the people who will benefit from the improved primary care.
• Caregivers of people with SMI: These people are obviously invested and concerned in the well-being of their loved ones. 
• SF DPH administrators: These are people who will have to “OK” this proposal and this expansion of focus.
• Payers: These are the people who will pay for the services provided.

1. Describe your plan for approaching potential community partners to ask for their involvement.  Focus groups with consumers, psychiatrists, primary care providers, and administrators have happened.  I plan to conduct a stakeholder workgroup at the clinic comprised of the following people (all psychiatrists at the pilot clinic, a primary care provider, a patient consumer, a caregiver, and local leaders at the clinic).  I also need to establish a CAB, which will include a psychiatrist, primary care provider, SF DPH administrators, consumers, payers, and caregivers.  In approaching each of these partners individually, I plan to emphasize how they will benefit the project and how they will benefit specifically:

• Consumers (patients): The project will benefit by understanding the real barriers in care and opinions of the patients.  It will also be much more patient-centered by included their perspectives.  The patients will benefit from having a community clinic that addresses all of their needs (mental and physical) while they are quite ill.
• Caregivers:  The project will benefit by recognizing more of the role that the family provides in terms of this health.  The caregivers will benefit because the program will hopefully reduce cardiovascular risk in their loved ones.
• Psychiatrists: The project will benefit by being able to tailor the intervention to the needs of the psychiatrists (the main target of behavioral change in this study).  The psychiatrists will benefit by having a system of care that provides the supports they need to better care for their patients (e.g., reminders, primary care consultation, etc).
• Primary care providers:  This project will benefit from the content expertise of primary care providers and the increased capacity to build stronger collaborative relationships with this provider group.  The primary care providers will benefit by having more of their patients obtain metabolic screening and preliminary treatment—thereby being able to focus efforts on those with more serious illness.
• SF DPH administrators:  This project will benefit from this group’s ability to identify systemic hurdles that may need to be overcome (e.g., documentation of this medical service).  The administrators will benefit by having improved quality of care for this vulnerable population (streamlining), and improved patient satisfaction.
• Payers: Similarly, the project will benefit from this group’s ability to identify financial hurdles that may need to be overcome (e.g., billing ).  I will try to include potential cost-savings that may be realized by this streamlined approach, the improved quality of care for this vulnerable population, and the improved patient satisfaction.

1. Identify which stages of your project you'll incorporate community input, and describe what types of input you'll solicit.  I will need to incorporate community input throughout.  Specifically, I’ll plan on the following:

• Weekly stakeholder workgroup at pilot site.  I’d like input from the multidisciplinary workgroup on various aspects of the proposal from design, implementation, and analysis.  They will give input throughout of regular hurdles we have to overcome.
• Quarterly CAB: I’d like input from the multidisciplinary workgroup on various aspects of the proposal from design, implementation, and analysis. 
• Monthly meetings with CBHS Medical Director, Irene Sung (this is already happening).  I’d like to incorporate input on the systemic barriers from these meetings. 
• Quarterly meeting with the CBSH Integration of Care group (during their regularly scheduled time).  I’d like to incorporate input on how this project fits into the overall plan to integrate care in CBHS.
• Quarterly meetings with DPH Primary Care Director (during their regularly scheduled time). I’d like to incorporate input on how this project fits into the overall plan to integrate care in CBHS.

1. Name three ways you plan to share your results, beyond writing an academic article or presenting at an academic conference.  I plan to make the following presentations:

• Pilot clinic
• CBHS Medical Directors’ meeting
• DPH Integration of Care Meeting
• California Safety Net Hospital Institute annual meeting.
• UCSF Center of Vulnerable Populations has the capacity to develop training programs and disseminate evidence-based interventions.
• San Francisco National Alliance of the Mentally Ill.
• National Association of State Mental Health Directors annual meeting
• American Psychiatric Association’s Integration of Care Task Force annual meeting.

Mapping

1. Identify a patient or community group that contributes to or is involved in the principal behavior you are attempting to improve with your intervention.  Community psychiatrists are my target group.  I am attempting to improve diabetes screening and preliminary treatment for any abnormalities with metformin.
2. Using any of the individual explanatory theories in “Theory at a Glance”, develop an explanatory model for the target behavior (above) that you will be attempting to influence with your intervention.  The Theory of Behavior Change makes the most sense for this problem.  Although the health and behavior model specifies key concepts that are problematic for the psychiatrists (e.g., self-efficacy in knowing how to treat metabolic abnormalities), cues to action (reminders), and barriers (limited access to primary care)—I thought I could incorporate them into model that is available upon request.

 3.     Identify how one or more of your specific interventions will target one or more of these key factors contributing to the behavior of interest.

The social marketing campaign will be at the community clinic.  I will likely have a CRANIUM poster (picture of Freud with a stethoscope).  Not sure I’m going to include pictures of patients.  Would be interested in figuring out how to “message” this topic.  The message would have to address:

• If you screen, the good thing that will happen is that the patients with reduce their cardiovascular disease risk.  This improved health meets CBHS goals to care for the whole patient.  Also, this integration of care initiative could allow for more free flow of dialogue and help with management from primary care.  In addition, this could improve patient satisfaction ratings. 
• If you screen, the bad thing that might happen is that they could have side effects from metformin (unlikely)

• If you don’t screen, the good thing that will happen is that you will have less work
• If you don’t screen, the bad thing that will happen is that the consumer patient will be at higher risk for early morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease.

4.     Create a framework that draws upon a socio-ecological framework to orient your target behavior within a larger context.  ie, what are some of broader, external forces that influence the individual behavior of interest (available upon request)