11 Clinical Trials for Various Conditions
Purpose of the Study: The Richmond Behavioral Health Authority's Substance Abuse Services Division and Virginia Commonwealth University's Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies are working on an important research study to improve the quality of substance use disorder treatment services offered by RBHA and its contracted services providers. Specifically, this preliminary research will provide the information needed to conduct a planned series of program-specific interventions, designed to increase the adoption of evidence-based practices (EBPs) within specific programs. A major goal of the study is to better understand what factors influence the adoption of EBPs, and what adoption strategies work best for which types of staff, which types of programs, and under what conditions. Description of Staff Involvement: In this study, staff will be asked to complete questionnaires about themselves, their workplaces, and their perceptions about the services their organization provides. Some of these questionnaires will be given to staff when they first enter the study, and others may be given to staff before and about 9 months after a 3-day Practice Improvement Workshop (please note that each agency may or may not be selected to complete the workshop). Description of Client Involvement: Clients at each participating site will be asked to complete a brief survey about the services they receive at that site. This survey will occur at the initial timepoint, and at several later timepoints. This survey is confidential and anonymous.
The goal of this study is to implement Opioid Use Disorder Quality Measurement and Management (OUD-QM2) strategy by the Office of Addiction Services and Supports (OASAS) to drive change and improve treatment practices. Through a concurrent mixed methods approach that iteratively examines quantitative and qualitative data to inform the process, the investigators will examine the effects of the strategy on stakeholders-PWUD/patients, families, and providers-and outcomes. This comprehensive approach will allow for a "global" view of the perceived effects of the OUD-QM2 strategy for all stakeholders while allowing us to use administrative data to test the effects of the strategy on patient outcomes. Through qualitative interviews and focus groups conducted in years 1, 3, and 5 of the phase, the investigators will derive information from stakeholders about their perceptions and use of the quality measures. Through surveys conducted with all clinics, the investigators will elicit data on changes in provider use of quality measures, clinical practice, and use of measures for incentive-based contracting. Finally, the investigators will conduct a stepped wedge trial to examine the effects of performance coaching that guides clinics on use of the quality measures for clinical practice improvement. The trial will also benefit from a treatment as usual (TAU) condition of clinics not participating in the trial to examine secular trends in patient outcomes across the period of the OASAS QM2 strategy rollout. The overall aim is to build and test a science-based OUD-QM2 strategy for person-centered treatment.
The goal of this quality improvement study is to measure the impact of incorporation of a manual rapid fluid infuser (RFI) for intravenous crystalloid infusion in patients with suspected sepsis in the prehospital interval. The main question\[s\] it aims to answer are: * Does the intervention affect the timeliness of fluid administration? * Does the intervention affect CMS sepsis bundle care measure compliance? * Does the intervention affect processes and outcomes of care? * Are there any adverse effects? Researchers will compare this intervention to use of more conventional gravity or pressure-infusion bag crystalloid infusion.
This study is a randomized controlled trial conducted at two clinical sites. The purpose of this study is to determine whether patients with musculoskeletal injuries do better by seeing a primary care provider first versus seeing a physical therapist first. Target enrollment is 150 subjects.
Purpose The emergence and rapid rise in antibiotic resistance among common bacteria are adversely affecting the clinical course and health care costs of community-acquired infections. Because antibiotic resistance rates are strongly correlated with antibiotic use patterns, multiple organizations have declared reductions in unnecessary antibiotic use to be critical components of efforts to combat antibiotic resistance. Among humans, the vast majority of unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions are used to treat acute respiratory tract infections (ARIs) that have a viral etiology. Although the rate of antibiotic prescribing for ARIs by office-based physicians in the US has decreased about 16% from its peak in 1997, the rate of antibiotic prescribing in acute care settings (eg, emergency departments and urgent care centers), which account for 1 in 5 ambulatory antibiotic prescriptions in the US, has shown only a modest decline (6%) during this period. Translation of lessons from intervention studies in office-based practices is needed to improve antibiotic use in acute care settings.
Policy makers and consumers are increasingly concerned about the quality and efficiency of care provided to individuals with severe, chronic illnesses such as schizophrenia. These illnesses are expensive to treat and present significant challenges to organizations that are responsible for providing effective care. Occurring in 1% of the United States population, schizophrenia accounts for 10% of permanently disabled people, and 2.5% of all healthcare expenditures. Clinical practice guidelines have been promulgated. Schizophrenia is treatable and outcomes can be substantially improved with the appropriate use of antipsychotic medication, caregiver education and counseling, vocational rehabilitation, and assertive treatment. However, in the VA and other mental health systems, many patients with schizophrenia receive substandard care. Methods are needed that improve the quality of usual care for this disorder while being feasible to implement at typical clinics. To date, most efforts to improve care for schizophrenia have focused on educating clinicians or changing the financing of care, and have had limited success. We believe a more fundamental approach should be tried. While there are many potential strategies, experience in chronic medical illness and mental health support the efficacy of specific approaches. Collaborative care models are one such approach. They are a blueprint for reorganizing practice, and involve changes in division of labor and responsibility, adoption of new care protocols, and increased attention to patients' needs. Although collaborative care models have been successful in other chronic medical conditions, they have not yet been studied in the treatment of schizophrenia. We have developed a collaborative care model for schizophrenia that builds on work in other disorders, and includes service delivery approaches that are known to be effective in schizophrenia. The model focuses on improving treatment through assertive care management, caregiver education and support, and standardized patient assessment with feedback of information to psychiatrists. This project, "EQUIP" (Enhancing Quality Utilization In Psychosis) is implementing collaborative care and evaluating its effectiveness in schizophrenia.
This study will evaluate whether patients and their providers benefit from an evidence-based decision tool to help prioritize preventive (and select chronic disease management) services based on their potential to improve quality-adjusted life expectancy, individualized for patient risk factors. The study seeks to enroll 600 patients and 60 primary care providers. Half of providers will be assigned to an intervention to utilize the decision tool with approximately 10 high-priority patients each (patients of particular interest to the research study, on whom follow-up outcomes will be collected), and half will be assigned to usual care. Surveys will be administered at baseline and approximately 6 months later; electronic health records data on preventive service utilization will be collected; and optional qualitative interviews may be conducted.
People with serious mental illness have difficulty making good use of primary care, and die, on average, years earlier than others in the population. The greatest contributors to this premature mortality are medical illnesses, especially cardiovascular disease and cancer. The Patient Centered Medical Home is a model for reorganizing primary care practice so that healthcare is more effective, efficient, and user-friendly. It has been implemented across VA as the, "Patient Aligned Care Team" (PACT). It is unclear, however, how this PACT model applies to people whose predominant illness is treated by specialists. This is the case for people with serious mental illness (SMI), many of whom receive ongoing treatment at mental health clinics. To achieve optimal health outcomes in the population with SMI, it may be necessary to adapt the PACT model so that it includes approaches that have proven to improve healthcare in this population. This project implements an adapted "SMI-PACT" model, and evaluates its effect on Veterans with SMI.
Lifestyle interventions have been shown to reduce heart disease risk and improve blood sugar control in clinical trials. This project will investigate whether those lifestyle interventions can be implemented long-term, in usual practice settings, by using dietitian case managers to coordinate lifestyle change in cooperation with fitness instructors and primary care clinicians.
The purpose of this study is to follow a woman's progression through menopause in order to examine the effects on health related quality of life and use of health care resources, and to understand how women are using alternative therapies.
This project is investigating whether application of a telecommunications system to the care of adult patients with asthma will improve self-management by enhancing compliance with preventive medication regimens and fostering the use of peak-flow-based action plans.