Mercy Care Intervention Assessment

Internal Characteristics

What are the characteristics of your health center? (rural/urban; other demographic variables, use of expanded care team, culture)?  

Mercy Care is an urban FQHC and is the only Healthcare for the Homeless designated provider in Atlanta.  The organization offers programs and services including primary and preventive health care, dental and vision services, health education focused on chronic disease management and prevention, HIV/AIDS-related services, and integrated behavioral health and substance use programming to thousands of homeless and low-income individuals each year.

How do interventions and/or workflows need to be adapted to ensure health equity?

Our interventions consider patients language, culture, and literacy levels and our teams work to meet patients where they are.

How complex are the patient interventions to implement (e.g., perceived difficulty of implementation, reflected by duration, scope, radicalness, disruptiveness, and number of steps required)?

The interventions are a continuations of activities and are not far outside of normal practices.

What are key characteristics of the participating setting(s)?

In 2022, Mercy Care served 15,915 patients in 57,696 visits across seven sites. Of those served, approximately 51% were experiencing homelessness, 45% were Black, 37% were Hispanic, 38% were best served in a language other than English, and 53% were uninsured. Among those for whom we have income data, 82% live at or below 100% of the federal poverty level. 

External Characteristics

What external or environmental supports or threats are there?

Supports include new funding for hypertension related activities (as our HRSA NHCI grant period is ending which supported our initial SMBP implementation), community engagement (new Atlanta Hypertension Initiative convened for the first time 10/24 hosted by ARCHI with representation from AMA, Live the Beat, and other community partners), and new leadership at Mercy Care (new President and CMO onboarded in the last few months). Threats may include retention of staff, burnout, competing priorities for providers to address for patients (especially SDH related, stress), patient satisfaction related to scheduling and wait times (may affect patients returning for follow-up visits).

Treatment Intensification (Combination Therapy)

Plan

Treatment Intensification (Combination Therapy)

Actual

Describe Intervention

(Select ONE; use BPAA Project Roadmap for ideas on evidence-based strategies)

Chosen intervention:

Plan for intervention:

Chosen Intervention: Improve patient engagement – Utilize Mercy Care Fall Festival to take patient  blood pressures and schedule follow-ups

Date when implemented:

Updates:

Reach (#/% patients – or providers, for provider-facing interventions – who participated in intervention)

Reach of implementers/providers?

Planned:

Reach of implementers/providers?

Actual:

Reach of patients (# of patients receiving treatment intensification)?

Planned:

• # AA pts. w/uncontrolled HTN on no therapy (as of 6/30/2023):

• # AA pts. w/uncontrolled HTN on monotherapy (as of 6/30/2023):

Reach of patients (# of patients receiving treatment intensification)?

Actual:

Efficacy (Impact of intervention on important outcomes)

How will you measure that your intervention is working?

Were you able to accurately measure how your intervention was working?

What outcomes do you expect?

What outcomes have you seen?

How will you ensure your intervention will be effective for your target population?

Did your intervention reach the target population?

What unintended consequences or outcomes might there be?

What unintended outcomes did you experience?

Adoption (#/% and representativeness of staff and sites who implemented the intervention)

How did clinicians respond to interventions to intensify medication more rapidly/address therapeutic inertia?

Who will deliver the intervention (actually do the work)? Include staff and sites, if applicable.

Who delivered the intervention? Did they have the skills and time needed to complete the intervention?

How will you know if clinicians/care teams/sites used the intervention?

What proportion of the planned staff/sites implemented the intervention?

Were there any differences between care teams/sites who adopted the intervention best vs. others who did not (e.g., differences in staff types, capacity, etc.)?

Implementation Fidelity (How closely the staff/sites followed the intervention design, delivered it as intended – also called fidelity to the intervention)

How will you know what adaptations or modifications were made during the intervention?

How did you track modifications during the intervention?

What might be some of the possible obstacles to consistent implementation?

What were the barriers to consistent intervention implementation?

What costs and resources (including time and burden, not just money) need to be considered?

What costs and resources (including time and burden, not just money) need to be considered?

How closely did the staff/sites follow the intervention design and deliver as intended?

Check all that apply:

• Followed as designed
• Followed with minor modifications
• Followed somewhat as designed
• Not followed as design
• Delivered consistently/as intended
• Delivered somewhat consistently/somewhat as intended
• Delivered inconsistently/not as intended

Modifications made and other notes:

Maintenance (Extent to which intervention is part of routine practices and protocols)

What reinforcements will you put in place to sustain the intervention, if effective?

• Protocols
• Clinical decision support (alerts, order sets, templates, registries)
• Policies
• Regular training
• Regular reports
• Incentives
• Other:

Explain:

What reinforcements did you put into place to sustain the intervention?

• Protocols
• Clinical decision support (alerts, order sets, templates, registries)
• Policies
• Regular training
• Regular reports
• Incentives
• Other:

Explain:

How will you spread your intervention and lessons learned?

How will you spread your intervention and lessons learned?

What are likely modifications or adaptations that will need to be made to sustain the intervention over time (e.g., lower cost, different staff, reduced intensity, different settings)?

Intervention #2

Plan

Intervention #2

Actual

Describe Intervention

(Select ONE; use BPAA Project Roadmap for ideas on evidence-based strategies)

Chosen intervention:

Plan for intervention:

Chosen Intervention: Increase touchpoints – Continued follow-up with current SMBP patients who are not controlled

Date when implemented:

Updates:

Reach (#/% patients – or providers, for provider-facing interventions – who participated in intervention)

Reach of implementers/providers?

Planned:

Reach of implementers/providers?

Actual:

Reach of patients (# of patients receiving treatment intensification)?

Planned:

• # AA pts. w/uncontrolled HTN on no therapy (as of 6/30/2023):

• # AA pts. w/uncontrolled HTN on monotherapy (as of 6/30/2023):

Reach of patients (# of patients receiving treatment intensification)?

Actual:

Efficacy (Impact of intervention on important outcomes)

How will you measure that your intervention is working?

Were you able to accurately measure how your intervention was working?

What outcomes do you expect?

What outcomes have you seen?

How will you ensure your intervention will be effective for your target population?

Did your intervention reach the target population?

What unintended consequences or outcomes might there be?

What unintended outcomes did you experience?

Adoption (#/% and representativeness of staff and sites who implemented the intervention)

How did clinicians respond to interventions to intensify medication more rapidly/address therapeutic inertia?

Who will deliver the intervention (actually do the work)? Include staff and sites, if applicable.

Who delivered the intervention? Did they have the skills and time needed to complete the intervention?

How will you know if clinicians/care teams/sites used the intervention?

What proportion of the planned staff/sites implemented the intervention?

Were there any differences between care teams/sites who adopted the intervention best vs. others who did not (e.g., differences in staff types, capacity, etc.)?

Implementation Fidelity (How closely the staff/sites followed the intervention design, delivered it as intended – also called fidelity to the intervention)

How will you know what adaptations or modifications were made during the intervention?

How did you track modifications during the intervention?

What might be some of the possible obstacles to consistent implementation?

What were the barriers to consistent intervention implementation?

What costs and resources (including time and burden, not just money) need to be considered?

What costs and resources (including time and burden, not just money) need to be considered?

How closely did the staff/sites follow the intervention design and deliver as intended?

Check all that apply:

• Followed as designed
• Followed with minor modifications
• Followed somewhat as designed
• Not followed as design
• Delivered consistently/as intended
• Delivered somewhat consistently/somewhat as intended
• Delivered inconsistently/not as intended

Modifications made and other notes:

Maintenance (Extent to which intervention is part of routine practices and protocols)

What reinforcements will you put in place to sustain the intervention, if effective?

• Protocols
• Clinical decision support (alerts, order sets, templates, registries)
• Policies
• Regular training
• Regular reports
• Incentives
• Other:

Explain:

What reinforcements did you put into place to sustain the intervention?

• Protocols
• Clinical decision support (alerts, order sets, templates, registries)
• Policies
• Regular training
• Regular reports
• Incentives
• Other:

Explain:

How will you spread your intervention and lessons learned?

How will you spread your intervention and lessons learned?

What are likely modifications or adaptations that will need to be made to sustain the intervention over time (e.g., lower cost, different staff, reduced intensity, different settings)?