Browsing by Author "Ward, Michael J."

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    Continuing the Transformation: Charting the Path for the Future Delivery of Veteran Emergency Care
    (Wiley, 2023) Ward, Michael J.; Kessler, Chad; Abel, Erica A.; Ahern, Justin; Bravata, Dawn M.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    Important changes in the delivery of Veteran emergency care in the early 2000s in the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) emergency departments and urgent care clinics substantially elevated the role of emergency medicine (EM) in Veteran health care. Focused on enhancing the quality of care, emergency care visits in both VA and non-VA (community) care locations have nearly doubled from the 1980s to more than 3 million visits in Fiscal Year 2022. Recognizing the need to plan for continued growth and the opportunity to address key research priorities, the VA Office of Emergency Medicine, together with the VA Health Services Research and Development Service, collaborated to convene a State of the Art Conference on Veteran Emergency Medicine (SAVE) in the winter of 2022. The goal of this conference was to identify research gaps and priorities for implementation of policies for three priority groups: geriatric Veterans, Veterans with mental health and substance use complaints, and Veterans presenting to non-VA (community) emergency care sites. In this article we discuss the rationale for the SAVE conference including a brief history of VA EM and the planning process and conclude with next steps for findings from the conference.
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    Effect of a Self-care Intervention on 90-Day Outcomes in Patients With Acute Heart Failure Discharged From the Emergency Department: A Randomized Clinical Trial
    (American Medical Association, 2021) Collins, Sean P.; Liu, Dandan; Jenkins, Cathy A.; Storrow, Alan B.; Levy, Phillip D.; Pang, Peter S.; Chang, Anna Marie; Char, Douglas; Diercks, Deborah J.; Fermann, Gregory J.; Han, Jin H.; Hiestand, Brian; Hogan, Christopher; Kampe, Christina J.; Khan, Yosef; Lee, Sangil; Lindenfeld, JoAnn; Martindale, Jennifer; McNaughton, Candace D.; Miller, Karen F.; Miller-Reilly, Carolyn; Moser, Kelly; Peacock, W. Frank; Robichaux, Chad; Rothman, Russell; Schrock, Jon; Self, Wesley H.; Singer, Adam J.; Sterling, Sarah A.; Ward, Michael J.; Walsh, Cheryl; Butler, Javed; Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine
    Importance: Up to 20% of patients who present to the emergency department (ED) with acute heart failure (AHF) are discharged without hospitalization. Compared with rates in hospitalized patients, readmission and mortality are worse for ED patients. Objective: To assess the impact of a self-care intervention on 90-day outcomes in patients with AHF who are discharged from the ED. Design, setting, and participants: Get With the Guidelines in Emergency Department Patients With Heart Failure was an unblinded, parallel-group, multicenter randomized trial. Patients were randomized 1:1 to usual care vs a tailored self-care intervention. Patients with AHF discharged after ED-based management at 15 geographically diverse EDs were included. The trial was conducted from October 28, 2015, to September 5, 2019. Interventions: Home visit within 7 days of discharge and twice-monthly telephone-based self-care coaching for 3 months. Main outcomes and measures: The primary outcome was a global rank of cardiovascular death, HF-related events (unscheduled clinic visit due to HF, ED revisit, or hospitalization), and changes in the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire-12 (KCCQ-12) summary score (SS) at 90 days. Key secondary outcomes included the global rank outcome at 30 days and changes in the KCCQ-12 SS score at 30 and 90 days. Intention-to-treat analysis was performed for the primary, secondary, and safety outcomes. Per-protocol analysis was conducted including patients who completed a home visit and had scheduled outpatient follow-up in the intervention arm. Results: Owing to slow enrollment, 479 of a planned 700 patients were randomized: 235 to the intervention arm and 244 to the usual care arm. The median age was 63.0 years (interquartile range, 54.7-70.2), 302 patients (63%) were African American, 305 patients (64%) were men, and 178 patients (37%) had a previous ejection fraction greater than 50%. There was no significant difference in the primary outcome between patients in the intervention vs usual care arm (hazard ratio [HR], 0.89; 95% CI, 0.73-1.10; P = .28). At day 30, patients in the intervention arm had significantly better global rank (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.64-0.99; P = .04) and a 5.5-point higher KCCQ-12 SS (95% CI, 1.3-9.7; P = .01), while at day 90, the KCCQ-12 SS was 2.7 points higher (95% CI, -1.9 to 7.2; P = .25). Conclusions and relevance: The self-care intervention did not improve the primary global rank outcome at 90 days in this trial. However, benefit was observed in the global rank and KCCQ-12 SS at 30 days, suggesting that an early benefit of a tailored self-care program initiated at an ED visit for AHF was not sustained through 90 days.
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    Research and Policy Recommendations from the SOTA XVI: State of the Art Conference on VA Emergency Medicine (SAVE)
    (Wiley, 2023) Ward, Michael J.; Hwang, Ula; Hastings, S. Nicole; Timko, Christine; Chen, Jason I.; Vashi, Anita A.; Mattocks, Kristin; Abel, Erica A.; Bravata, Dawn M.; Medicine, School of Medicine
    To better understand and prioritize research on emergency care for Veterans, the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) Health Services Research and Development convened the 16th State of the Art Conference on VA Emergency Medicine (SAVE) in Winter 2022 with emergency clinicians, researchers, operational leaders, and additional stakeholders in attendance. Three specific areas of focus were identified including older Veterans, Veterans with mental health needs, and emergency care in the community (non-VA) settings. Among older Veterans, identified priorities included examination of variation in care and its impact on patient outcomes, utilization, and costs; quality of emergency department (ED) care transitions and strategies to improve them; impact of geriatric ED care improvement initiatives; and use of geriatric assessment tools in the ED. For Veterans with mental health needs, priorities included enhancing the reach of effective, multicomponent suicide prevention interventions; development and evaluation of interventions to manage substance use disorders; and identifying and examining safety and effective acute psychosis practices. Community (non-VA) emergency care priorities included examining changes in patterns of use and costs in VA and the community care settings as a result of recent policy and coverage changes (with an emphasis on modifiable factors); understanding quality, safety, and Veteran experience differences between VA and community settings; and better understanding follow-up needs among Veterans who received emergency care (or urgent care) and how well those needs are being coordinated, communicated, and met. Beyond these three groups, cross-cutting themes included the use of telehealth and implementation science to refine multicomponent interventions, care coordination, and data needs from both VA and non-VA sources. Findings from this conference will be disseminated through multiple mechanisms and contribute to future funding applications focused on improving Veteran health.