Changes in Patient-Reported Outcomes Associated with Receiving Whole Health in the Veteran Health Administration (VHA)'s National Demonstration Project.

Bokhour BG, DeFaccio R, Gaj L, Barker A, Deeney C, Coggeshall S, Gelman H, Taylor SL, Thomas E, Zeliadt SB. Changes in Patient-Reported Outcomes Associated with Receiving Whole Health in the Veteran Health Administration (VHA)'s National Demonstration Project. Journal of general internal medicine. 2023 Aug 31.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Whole Health (WH) is a patient-centered model of care being implemented by the Veterans Health Administration. Little is known about how use of WH services impacts patients'' health and well-being. OBJECTIVE: We sought to assess the association of WH utilization with pain and other patient-reported outcomes (PRO) over 6 months. DESIGN: A longitudinal observational cohort evaluation, comparing changes in PRO surveys for WH users and Conventional Care (CC) users. Inverse probability of treatment weighting was used to balance the two groups on observed demographic and clinical characteristics. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 9689 veterans receiving outpatient care at 18 VA medical centers piloting WH. INTERVENTIONS: WH services included goal-setting clinical encounters, Whole Health coaching, personal health planning, and well-being services. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was change in pain intensity and interference at 6 months using the 3-item PEG. Secondary outcomes included satisfaction, experiences of care, patient engagement in healthcare, and well-being. KEY RESULTS: By 6 months,1053 veterans had utilized WH and 3139 utilized only CC. Baseline pain PEG scores were 6.2 (2.5) for WH users and 6.4 (2.3) for CC users (difference p? = 0.028), improving by?-?2.4% (p? = 0.006) and?-?2.3% (p? < 0.001), respectively. In adjusted analyses, WH use was unassociated with greater improvement in PEG scores compared to CC?-?1.0% (-?2.9%, 1.2%). Positive trends were observed for 8 of 15 exploratory outcomes for WH compared to CC. WH use was associated with greater improvements at 6 months in likelihood to recommend VA 2.0% (0.9%, 3.3%); discussions of goals 11.8% (8.2%, 15.5%); perceptions of healthcare interactions 2.5% (0.4%, 4.6%); and engagement in health behaviors 2.2% (0.3%, 3.9%). CONCLUSION: This study provides early evidence supporting the delivery of WH patient-centered care services to improve veterans'' experiences of and engagement in care. These are important first-line impacts towards the goals of better overall health and well-being outcomes for Veterans.