Engaging Veterans and Family Supporters in PACT to Improve Diabetes Management

描述(由申请人提供)： 背景：患有糖尿病的退伍军人必须控制心血管危险因素，以防止残疾和危及生命的并发症。然而，尽管全系统在糖尿病护理质量方面取得了进展，但超过30%的糖尿病VHA患者仍然存在血压失控、高血糖或高脂血症。全国范围内的VA PACT(患者对齐护理团队)倡议旨在为VA初级保健患者提供全面的、基于团队的支持，以支持以下糖尿病护理方案。然而，PACT的成功取决于它是否有能力有效地让患者参与护理。支持参与PACT的一个相对未开发的资源是患者的家人和朋友。四分之三的成年糖尿病患者会向无偿的家庭成员或朋友(健康支持者)寻求糖尿病管理方面的持续帮助。这些支持者帮助患者遵守服药规定，跟踪家庭血糖测量，维持健康的饮食计划，并经常陪同患者就医。然而，虽然PACT强调家庭成员作为护理团队的一部分的重要性，但PACT没有让健康支持者参与PACT护理的正式机制。健康支持者报告说，为了更有效，他们需要更多关于患者医疗保健计划的信息，与PACT团队成员沟通的畅通渠道，以及导航PACT资源的信息。目的：这项随机试验的总体目标是测试一种策略，以加强支持者的能力，帮助高危糖尿病患者参与PACT护理并成功地制定护理计划。中心假设是，向健康支持者和患者提供医疗参与工具将增加患者的活跃度，并改善糖尿病并发症风险的管理。方法：这将是一项随机对照试验，评估一项旨在构建和促进健康支持者参与PACT的干预措施(关怀他人增加参与PACT，或CO-IMPACT)，以便患者能够更积极地参与PACT护理，并改善他们的糖尿病治疗过程和结果。接受PACT初级护理的220名糖尿病患者，1)由于高血糖或高血压而有糖尿病并发症的高风险，2)有健康支持者参与他们的糖尿病护理，将与他们的健康支持者一起招募。患者-支持者二人组将随机接受CO-Impact干预或高危糖尿病常规PACT护理，为期12个月。CO-Impact方案提供患者-支持者二人组：一次关于行动计划、与提供者的沟通、导航技能和支持技能的指导会议；在患者进行初级保健访问之前通过电话进行准备；通过邮寄的访问后总结；以及两周一次的自动电话呼叫，以提示针对新的患者健康问题采取的二人组行动。Co-Impact建立在PACT工具包中集成了医疗记录的患者激活工具上，并设计为可在现有的PACT护士会面中实施。这项研究的主要结果包括一项经过验证的患者激活测量(患者激活测量-13)和为糖尿病患者设计的心脏事件5年风险评分(UKPDS风险引擎)。次要结果包括患者对糖尿病自我护理的自我效能；糖尿病自我管理行为，包括服药依从性；糖尿病痛苦；以及血糖和血压控制。支持者的措施将包括激活支持者，使用有效的支持技术，对患者糖尿病护理的苦恼，以及照顾者的负担。我们还将衡量患者-支持者和患者-提供者的关系质量、患者安全性(例如低血糖)和利用率。我们将衡量干预效果的潜在调节因素，如患者的健康素养水平，以及参与者和工作人员中更广泛实施的促进者和障碍。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): BACKGROUND: Veterans with diabetes must control cardiovascular risk factors in order to prevent disabling and life-threatening complications. However, despite system wide advances in diabetes quality of care, over 30% of VHA patients with diabetes continue to have uncontrolled blood pressure, hyperglycemia, or hyperlipidemia. The nationwide VA PACT (Patient-Aligned Care Teams) initiative seeks to provide VA primary care patients with comprehensive, team-based support for following diabetes care regimens. PACT's success, however, hinges on its ability to effectively engage patients in care. One relatively untapped resource for supporting engagement in PACT is patients' family and friends. Three out of four adults with diabetes reach out to an unpaid family member or friend (a 'health supporter') for ongoing help with diabetes management. These supporters help patients with medication adherence, tracking home glucose measurements, maintaining a healthy eating plan, and often accompany patients to their medical visits. However, while PACT emphasizes the importance of family members as part of the care team, PACT does not have formal mechanisms to involve health supporters in PACT care. Health supporters report that, in order to be more effective, they need more information on patient's medical care plans, clear channels for communicating with PACT team members, and information on navigating PACT resources. OBJECTIVES: The overall objective of this randomized trial is to test a strategy to strengthen the capacity of supporters to help patients with high-risk diabetes engage in PACT care and successfully enact care plans. The central hypothesis is that providing health care engagement tools to both health supporters and patients will increase patient activation and improve management of diabetes complication risks. METHODS: This will be a randomized controlled trial evaluating an intervention (Caring Others Increasing EngageMent in PACT, or CO-IMPACT) designed to structure and facilitate health supporter involvement in PACT so that patients can become more actively engaged in PACT care, and improve their diabetes treatment processes and outcomes. 220 patients with diabetes receiving PACT primary care who 1) are at high risk for diabetes complications due to hyperglycemia OR high blood pressure and 2) have a health supporter involved in their diabetes care will be recruited along with their health supporter. Patient-supporter dyads will be randomized to the CO-IMPACT intervention or usual PACT care for high-risk diabetes, for 12 months. The CO- IMPACT protocol provides patient-supporter dyads: one coaching session on action planning, communicating with providers, navigation skills and support skills; preparation by phone before patients' primary care visits; after-visit summaries by mail; and biweekly automated phone calls to prompt dyad action on new patient health concerns. CO-IMPACT builds on medical record-integrated patient activation tools in the PACT toolkit and is designed to be implementable within existing PACT nurse encounters. Primary outcomes for this study include a validated measure of patient activation (Patient Activation Measure-13) and a cardiac event 5-year risk score designed for patients with diabetes (UKPDS Risk Engine). Secondary outcomes include patients' self- efficacy for diabetes self-care; diabetes self-management behaviors including medication adherence; diabetes distress; and glycemic and blood pressure control. Measures among supporters will include supporter activation, use of effective support techniques, distress about patient's diabetes care, and caregiver burden. We will also measure patient-supporter and patient-provider relationship quality, patient safety (e.g. hypoglycemia), and utilization. We will measure potential moderators of intervention effect, such as patient health literacy level, and facilitators and barriers to wider implementation among participants and staff.