Champion Teams: An Implementation Strategy to Drive Practice Improvement

Developing collaborative practice is an ongoing process requiring frequent upgrades as team members and processes are added. Recently, faculty in ETSU’s Department of Family Medicine have been experimenting with a mechanism for iterative upgrades to team care practice known as Champion Teams. Champion Teams are based on the Institute of Medicine’s learning health care system approach in which practitioners develop an internal strategy for implementing new evidence based practices on an ongoing basis. In this presentation, our interprofessional team will describe team-based education and practice at ETSU as it relates to the Champion Team concept including its origins, evidence-base, and the logistics of how it functions. We will provide examples of four Champion Team projects including: 1) integrating behavioral health, 2) increasing attendance at medical visits, 3) increasing vaccination rates, and 4) a transition to a new pharmacological regimen for congestive heart failure patients. The exemplars will demonstrate how quality improvement data informed progressive changes and confirmed implementation outcomes. During discussion, we will encourage participants to identify their own targets for champion teams

The effects of patient characteristics on ADHD diagnosis and treatment: a factorial study of family physicians

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a costly and prevalent disorder in the U.S., especially among youth. However, significant disparities in diagnosis and treatment appear to be predicted by the race and insurance status of patients.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study employed a web-based factorial survey with four ADHD cases derived from an ADHD clinic, two diagnosed with ADHD in actual evaluation, and two not. Randomized measures included race and insurance status of the patients. Participants N = (187) included clinician members of regional and national practice-based research networks and the U.S. clinical membership of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine. The main outcomes were decisions to 1) diagnose and 2) treat the cases, based upon the information presented, analyzed via binary logistic regression of the randomized factors and case indicators on diagnosis and treatment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>ADHD-positive cases were 8 times more likely to be diagnosed and 12 times more likely to be treated, and the male ADHD positive case was more likely to be diagnosed and treated than the female ADHD positive case. Uninsured cases were significantly more likely to be treated overall, but male cases that were uninsured were about half as likely to be diagnosed and treated with ADHD. Additionally, African-American race appears to increase the likelihood of medicinal treatment for ADHD and being both African-American and uninsured appears to cut the odds of medicinal treatment in half, but not significantly.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Family physicians were competent at discerning between near-threshold ADHD-negative and ADHD positive cases. However, insurance status and race, as well as gender, appear to affect the likelihood of diagnosis and treatment for ADHD in Family Medicine settings.</p

INTRA-Disciplinary Care: Can Mental Health Professionals Work Together in Primary Care?

Excerpt: Last fall, I sat through an uncomfortable board meeting. I was charged to work with a Clinical Social Worker, Licensed Practicing Counselor, a Counseling Psychologist, and a Licensed Nurse Practitioner to develop an integrated care training program as part of a rural workforce development project