Evaluation of interdisciplinary patient care conferences for the complex patient population in a rural state

Abstract

Primary care practice in the 21st century requires innovative and visionary transformation. With the prevalence of chronic diseases continuing to increase, the management of diseases and patients has to change in order to make an impact on outcomes and healthcare costs. As needs for primary care expand, the population ages and patient complexity increases, collaborative care is vital in providing optimum patient care. In 2018, the United States healthcare costs were $3.6 trillion, averaging $11,000 per person and are projected to increase to $6.2 trillion by year 2028. With care that is often fragmented between large hospital systems and community resources, rural states have shown that coordinated care teams have had a dramatic impact on healthcare costs. Monthly de-identified interdisciplinary patient care conferences were evaluated using the Collaborative Case Conference form. In the spring of 2021 an electronic survey was delivered to 18 historical participants of the interdisciplinary patient care conferences via email with goals of obtaining formative and summative evaluations. Formative evaluation found that 100% of participants responded Very Good-Excellent in usefulness of discussions as well as collaborative nature. The summative evaluation revealed that 93.34% of participants Agreed-Strongly Agreed that, as a result of the care conferences, they had a clearer sense of other health professionals roles. All participants reported that they Agreed-Strongly Agreed that there was greater value in interprofessional collaboration after participating in the conferences. Limitations of the evaluation included technology, recall bias, poor survey choices, and low scalability of project. In conclusion, the evaluation of the interdisciplinary patient care conferences for complex patients in a rural state was an overall success. Unfortunately, the program is no longer ongoing as it was halted after funding ended, making sustainability one challenge of convening statewide care conferences of this type. On a positive note, after the initiative was finished individual organizations did implement similar localized care conferences within their settings.