Improving Care Coordination Between Veterans Health Administration Primary Care Teams and Community Home Health Aide Providers: A Qualitative Study

Emily Franzosa, Kimberly M. Judon, Eve M. Gottesman, Nicholas S. Koufacos, Tessa Runels, Matthew Augustine, Courtney H. Van Houtven, Kenneth S. Boockvar

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Effective coordination between medical and long-term services is essential to high-quality primary care for older adults, but can be challenging. Our study assessed coordination and communication through semi-structured interviews with Veterans Health Administration (VHA) primary care clinicians (n = 9); VHA-contracted home health agencies (n = 6); and home health aides (n = 8) caring for veterans at an urban VHA medical center. Participants reported (1) establishing home health services is complex, requiring collaboration between many individuals and systems; (2) communication between medical teams and agencies is often reactive; (3) formal communication channels between medical teams and agencies are lacking; (4) aides are an important source of patient information; and (5) aides report important information, but rarely receive it. Removing structural communication barriers; incentivizing reporting channels and information sharing between aides, agencies, and primary care teams; and integrating aides into interdisciplinary teams may improve coordination of medical and long-term care.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)552-560
Number of pages9
JournalJournal of Applied Gerontology
Volume42
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 2023

Keywords

  • care coordination
  • communication
  • home and community based care and services
  • home care
  • home care workers
  • primary care
  • qualitative methods
  • veterans

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