Computerized Vs In-Person Brief Intervention for Drug Misuse: RCT

We have written much about the challenges of widespread implementation of SBIRT in the US. Well, authors of a new study, published online this month in the journal, Addiction, have suggested a novel tool which they believe could help ensure that scores of additional patients are being screened: computerized brief intervention. And according to their study, it works as well and the in-person version:

Abstract

Background and aims

Several studies have found that brief interventions (BIs) for drug misuse have superior effectiveness to no-treatment controls. However, many health centers do not provide BIs for drug use consistently due to insufficient behavioral health staff capacity. Computerized BIs for drug use are a promising approach, but their effectiveness compared with in-person BIs has not been established. This study compared the effectiveness of a computerized brief intervention (CBI) to an in-person brief intervention (IBI) delivered by a behavioral health counselor.

Methods

Two-arm randomized clinical trial, conducted in two health centers in New Mexico, USA. Participants were 360 adult primary care patients with moderate-risk drug scores on the Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) who were randomly assigned on a 1:1 basis to a computerized brief intervention (CBI) or to an in-person brief intervention (IBI) delivered by a behavioral health counselor. Assessments were conducted at baseline and 3-month follow-up, and included the ASSIST and drug testing on hair samples.

Results

The IBI and CBI conditions did not differ at 3 months on global ASSIST drug scores (b=-1.79; 95% CI=-4.37,-0.80) or drug-positive hair tests (OR=.97; 95% CI= 0.47,1.94). There was a statistically significant advantage of CBI over IBI in substance-specific ASSIST scores for marijuana (b=-1.73; 95% CI= -2.91,-0.55; Cohen's d=.26; p=.004) and cocaine (b= -4.48; 95% CI= -8.26,-0.71; Cohen's d=.50; p=.037) at 3 months.

Conclusions

Computerized brief intervention can be an effective alternative to in-person brief intervention for addressing moderate drug use in primary care.

What do you think - could computerized brief interventions be the key to widespread SBIRT implementation?

Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.12502/abstract 

Gaps in Clinical Prevention and Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorders

Dr W's article, "Gaps in Clinical Prevention and Treatment for Alcohol Use Disorders" was published this month online in the journal Alcohol Research: Current Reviews. Here's the abstract:

Abstract

Heavy drinking causes significant morbidity, premature mortality, and other social and economic burdens on society, prompting numerous prevention and treatment efforts to avoid or ameliorate the prevalence of heavy drinking and its consequences. However, the impact on public health of current selective (i.e., clinical) prevention and treatment strategies is unclear. Screening and brief counseling for at-risk drinkers in ambulatory primary care has the strongest evidence for efficacy, and some evidence indicates this approach is cost-effective and reduces excess morbidity and dysfunction. Widespread implementation of screening and brief counseling of nondependent heavy drinkers outside of the medical context has the potential to have a large public health impact. For people with functional dependence, no appropriate treatment and prevention approaches currently exist, although such strategies might be able to prevent or reduce the morbidity and other harmful consequences associated with the condition before its eventual natural resolution. For people with alcohol use disorders, particularly severe and recurrent dependence, treatment studies have shown improvement in the short term. However, there is no compelling evidence that treatment of alcohol use disorders has resulted in reductions in overall disease burden. More research is needed on ways to address functional alcohol dependence as well as severe and recurrent alcohol dependence.

And check out the full piece here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3908715/

Are Financial Incentives the Answer to SBIRT Implementation?

Researchers from Imperial College London may have found a way to increase alcohol screening and brief intervention in a primary care setting: financial incentives. The results, published online Dec. 26 in the Journal of Public Health, show that offering a points-based incentive for successful screening, brief intervention and referral to specialists significantly increased the number of patients who were screened. As a result, the authors say, more patients with risky alcohol intake were identified and offered care, reducing hazardous and harmful drinking in some.

While the evidence for SBIRT is abundant and well-known, there have been considerable problems in promoting widespread implementation - especially in primary care. Financial incentives could be one effective means of changing this. (Granted, a large-scale effort by the federal government or the insurance companies would likely be required to provide funding. In this study, data was collected from 2008-2011, until the UK's Quality and Outcomes Framework funding was withdrawn.)

Abstract

Introduction Alcohol screening and brief intervention (ASBI) is effective but underprovided in primary care. Financial incentives may help address this. This study assesses the impact of a local pay-for-performance programme on delivery of ASBI in UK primary care.

Methods Longitudinal study using data from 30 general practices in north-west London from 2008 to 2011 with logistic regression to examine disparities in ASBI delivery.

Results Of 211 834 registered patients, 45 040 were targeted by the incentive (cardiovascular conditions or high risk; mental health conditions), of whom 65.7% were screened (up from a baseline of 4.8%, P< 0.001), compared with 14.7% of non-targeted patients (P < 0.001). Screening rates were lower after adjustment in younger patients, White patients, less deprived areas and in patients with mental health conditions (P < 0.05). Of those screened, 11.5% were positive and 88.6% received BI. Men and White patients were significantly more likely to screen positive. Women and younger patients were less likely to receive BI. 30.1% of patients re-screened were now negative. However, patients with mental health conditions were less likely to re-screen negative than those with cardiovascular conditions.

Conclusion Financial incentives appear to be effective in increasing delivery of ASBI in primary care and may reduce hazardous and harmful drinking in some patients. The findings support universal rather than targeted screening.

Source: http://intljpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/12/26/pubmed.fdt121.abstract

Why SBIRT Is Dead in the Water

In the latest issue of Health Affairs, Grace Lin et al. describe an effort to introduce decision-making aids to facilitate shared decision-making regarding back pain and colo-rectal cancer screening. Essentially, nothing changed, in spite of making the aids easily accessible, conducting training sessions, and so on. What's important is the authors' conclusion that "The results of focus groups, ethnographic field notes, and surveys suggest that major structural and cultural changes in health care practice and policy are necessary to achieve the levels of use of decision aids and shared decision making in routine practice envisioned in current policy."

Their experience mirrors my own in trying for over 20 years to get substance use addressed in primary care. Most recently, I have two separate but relate experiences here in Minnesota where I essentially ran up against a brick wall. Why? First, primary care doctors are besieged by quality improvement initiatives aimed at reducing variability of practice and improving outcomes for depression, diabetes, heart failure, back pain, asthma, hypertension and many others. These are typically mandated from the top of health care organizations (remember that most primary care physicians are now employees of a large health care organization (HCO.) By attempting to implement not only SBIRT but treatment of alcohol dependence in primary care (I call it Screening, Evaluation and Treatment, or SET, but another term could be SBIRT+) by asking physicians to voluntarily take it on was a non-starter. Typical comments were "It's a good idea but we can't take on anything more right now," or "We're having enough trouble trying to get this clinic's operations running smoothly, and until we do, it wouldn't work." 

A second factor is one of priorities. I have argued for years that universal SBIRT is not cost-effective, but should be more targeted. Related to this is a crucial question: since visit length is not going to increase, what do you want the doctor to stop doing so they can do these new things, like shared decision-making and SBIRT+?  In other words, in a typical visit, the patient has certain expectations about why they are there and what they want, and most patients have multiple chronic diseases like obesity, arthritis, hypertension and diabetes. Oh, and of course they smoke. So, do you want the doctor to not address the patient's presenting complaint (e.g., arthritis pain, insomnia), or not address their hypertensive control so they have the time to spend on shared decision-making for back pain, or to conduct SBIRT+? How do you think patients would feel about this? This applies especially to SBIRT, because it is attempting to identify a problem they patient is unaware of and not concerned about. "Doctor, I came here because my right knee is all swollen and painful, and you want to take 2 out of the 8 minutes you spend with me asking me about drinking!?"

So have come to a similar conclusion: until the medical home concept is fully implemented, with team care that includes a focus on health behaviors of all types, SBIRT or SET are DOA. My most recent attempt has been to start with something that has the attention of every primary care doctor: pain management. I'm providing training to all the primary care doctors in Allina Health in management of chronic pain, and the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive. I'm hoping that by getting to know so many primary care physicians in this HCO, they will be more receptive to introducing SET. However, it has also become clear that the only way this will occur is if the top leadership of the organization decides that SET is important enough to get it into the queue of quality improvement projects, and thus mandate its implementation. 

Primary care, even with the medical home, is not going to be all things to all people, and choices are going to have to be made about what is important enough to include and what might ideally be included but which doesn't make the cut because it is not cost-effective or clinically significant enough.

Besides, if we were serious about addressing the heavy disease burden associated with heavy drinking, we would triple the taxes on alcoholic beverages. That would have a greater public health impact than implementing SBIRT in every primary care practice in the country. 

MW

Here's the abstract:

An Effort To Spread Decision Aids In Five California Primary Care Practices Yielded Low Distribution, Highlighting Hurdles

1. Grace A. Lin1, 
2. Meghan Halley2, 
3. Katharine A.S. Rendle3,
4. Caroline Tietbohl4, 
5. Suepattra G. May5, 
6. Laurel Trujillo6 and
7. Dominick L. Frosch7,*

+Author Affiliations

1. ¹Grace A. Lin is an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco.
2. ²Meghan Halley is an assistant research anthropologist in the Department of Health Services Research at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, in California.
3. ³Katharine A.S. Rendle is a research associate in the Department of Health Services Research at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute.
4. ⁴Caroline Tietbohl is a research assistant in the Department of Health Services Research at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute.
5. ⁵Suepattra G. May is an assistant research anthropologist in the Department of Health Services Research at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute.
6. ⁶Laurel Trujillo is medical director of quality at the Palo Alto Foundation Medical Group and chair of the Quality Improvement Steering Committee, both at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, in Los Altos, California.
7. ⁷Dominick L. Frosch (dominick.frosch@moore.org) is an associate adjunct professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, Department of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles.

1. ↵*Corresponding author

Abstract

Despite the proven efficacy of decision aids as interventions for increasing patient engagement and facilitating shared decision making, they are not used routinely in clinical care. Findings from a project designed to achieve such integration, conducted at five primary care practices in 2010–12, document low rates of distribution of decision aids to eligible patients due for colorectal cancer screening (9.3 percent) and experiencing back pain (10.7 percent). There were also no lasting increases in distribution rates in response to training sessions and other promotional activities for physicians and clinic staff. The results of focus groups, ethnographic field notes, and surveys suggest that major structural and cultural changes in health care practice and policy are necessary to achieve the levels of use of decision aids and shared decision making in routine practice envisioned in current policy. Among these changes are ongoing incentives for use, physician training, and a team-based practice model in which all care team members bear formal responsibility for the use of decision aids in routine primary care.