Health Policy

Abstract

Diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients are a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Significant challenges in defining and measuring diagnostic errors and underlying process failure points have led to considerable variability in reported rates of diagnostic errors and adverse outcomes. In this article, we explore the diagnostic process and its discrete components, emphasizing the centrality of the patient in decision-making as well as the continuous nature of the process. We review the incidence of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients and different methodological approaches that have been used to arrive at these estimates. We discuss different but interdependent provider- and system-related process-failure points that lead to diagnostic errors. We examine specific challenges related to measurement of diagnostic errors and describe traditional and novel approaches that are being used to obtain the most precise estimates. Finally, we examine various patient-, provider-, and organizational-level interventions that have been proposed to improve diagnostic safety in hospitalized patients.

Keywords: diagnostic error, hospital medicine, patient safety.

Diagnosis is defined as a “pre-existing set of categories agreed upon by the medical profession to designate a specific condition.”¹ The diagnostic process involves obtaining a clinical history, performing a physical examination, conducting diagnostic testing, and consulting with other clinical providers to gather data that are relevant to understanding the underlying disease processes. This exercise involves generating hypotheses and updating prior probabilities as more information and evidence become available. Throughout this process of information gathering, integration, and interpretation, there is an ongoing assessment of whether sufficient and necessary knowledge has been obtained to make an accurate diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment.²

Diagnostic error is defined as a missed opportunity to make a timely diagnosis as part of this iterative process, including the failure of communicating the diagnosis to the patient in a timely manner.³ It can be categorized as a missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnosis based on available evidence at the time. Establishing the correct diagnosis has important implications. A timely and precise diagnosis ensures the patient the highest probability of having a positive health outcome that reflects an appropriate understanding of underlying disease processes and is consistent with their overall goals of care.³ When diagnostic errors occur, they can cause patient harm. Adverse events due to medical errors, including diagnostic errors, are estimated to be the third leading cause of death in the United States.⁴ Most people will experience at least 1 diagnostic error in their lifetime. In the 2015 National Academy of Medicine report Improving Diagnosis in Healthcare, diagnostic errors were identified as a major hazard as well as an opportunity to improve patient outcomes.²

Diagnostic errors during hospitalizations are especially concerning, as they are more likely to be implicated in a wider spectrum of harm, including permanent disability and death. This has become even more relevant for hospital medicine physicians and other clinical providers as they encounter increasing cognitive and administrative workloads, rising dissatisfaction and burnout, and unique obstacles such as night-time scheduling.⁵

Incidence of Diagnostic Errors in Hospitalized Patients

Several methodological approaches have been used to estimate the incidence of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients. These include retrospective reviews of a sample of all hospital admissions, evaluations of selected adverse outcomes including autopsy studies, patient and provider surveys, and malpractice claims. Laboratory testing audits and secondary reviews in other diagnostic subspecialities (eg, radiology, pathology, and microbiology) are also essential to improving diagnostic performance in these specialized fields, which in turn affects overall hospital diagnostic error rates.^6-8 These diverse approaches provide unique insights regarding our ability to assess the degree to which potential harms, ranging from temporary impairment to permanent disability, to death, are attributable to different failure points in the diagnostic process.

Large retrospective chart reviews of random hospital admissions remain the most accurate way to determine the overall incidence of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients.⁹ The Harvard Medical Practice Study, published in 1991, laid the groundwork for measuring the incidence of adverse events in hospitalized patients and assessing their relation to medical error, negligence, and disability. Reviewing 30,121 randomly selected records from 51 randomly selected acute care hospitals in New York State, the study found that adverse events occurred in 3.7% of hospitalizations, diagnostic errors accounted for 13.8% of these events, and these errors were likely attributable to negligence in 74.7% of cases. The study not only outlined individual-level process failures, but also focused attention on some of the systemic causes, setting the agenda for quality improvement research in hospital-based care for years to come.^10-12 A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of 22 hospital admission studies found a pooled rate of 0.7% (95% CI, 0.5%-1.1%) for harmful diagnostic errors.⁹ It found significant variations in the rates of adverse events, diagnostic errors, and range of diagnoses that were missed. This was primarily because of variabilities in pre-test probabilities in detecting diagnostic errors in these specific cohorts, as well as due to heterogeneity in study definitions and methodologies, especially regarding how they defined and measured “diagnostic error.” The analysis, however, did not account for diagnostic errors that were not related to patient harm (missed opportunities); therefore, it likely significantly underestimated the true incidence of diagnostic errors in these study populations. Table 1 summarizes some of key studies that have examined the incidence of harmful diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients.^9-21

The chief limitation of reviewing random hospital admissions is that, since overall rates of diagnostic errors are still relatively low, a large number of case reviews are required to identify a sufficient sample of adverse outcomes to gain a meaningful understanding of the underlying process failure points and develop tools for remediation. Patient and provider surveys or data from malpractice claims can be high-yield starting points for research on process errors.^22,23 Reviews of enriched cohorts of adverse outcomes, such as rapid-response events, intensive care unit (ICU) transfers, deaths, and hospital readmissions, can be an efficient way to identify process failures that lead to greatest harm. Depending on the research approach and the types of underlying patient populations sampled, rates of diagnostic errors in these high-risk groups have been estimated to be approximately 5% to 20%, or even higher.^6,24-31 For example, a retrospective study of 391 cases of unplanned 7-day readmissions found that 5.6% of cases contained at least 1 diagnostic error during the index admission.³² In a study conducted at 6 Belgian acute-care hospitals, 56% of patients requiring an unplanned transfer to a higher level of care were determined to have had an adverse event, and of these adverse events, 12.4% of cases were associated with errors in diagnosis.²⁹ A systematic review of 16 hospital-based studies estimated that 3.1% of all inpatient deaths were likely preventable, which corresponded to 22,165 deaths annually in the United States.³⁰ Another such review of 31 autopsy studies reported that 28% of autopsied ICU patients had at least 1 misdiagnosis; of these diagnostic errors, 8% were classified as potentially lethal, and 15% were considered major but not lethal.³¹ Significant drawbacks of such enriched cohort studies, however, are their poor generalizability and inability to detect failure points that do not lead to patient harm (near-miss events).³³

Causes of Diagnostic Errors in Hospitalized Patients

All aspects of the diagnostic process are susceptible to errors. These errors stem from a variety of faulty processes, including failure of the patient to engage with the health care system (eg, due to lack of insurance or transportation, or delay in seeking care); failure in information gathering (eg, missed history or exam findings, ordering wrong tests, laboratory errors); failure in information interpretation (eg, exam finding or test result misinterpretation); inaccurate hypothesis generation (eg, due to suboptimal prioritization or weighing of supporting evidence); and failure in communication (eg, with other team members or with the patient).^2,34 Reasons for diagnostic process failures vary widely across different health care settings. While clinician assessment errors (eg, failure to consider or alternatively overweigh competing diagnoses) and errors in testing and the monitoring phase (eg, failure to order or follow up diagnostic tests) can lead to a majority of diagnostic errors in some patient populations, in other settings, social (eg, poor health literacy, punitive cultural practices) and economic factors (eg, lack of access to appropriate diagnostic tests or to specialty expertise) play a more prominent role.^34,35

The Figure describes the relationship between components of the diagnostic process and subsequent outcomes, including diagnostic process failures, diagnostic errors, and absence or presence of patient harm.^2,36,37 It reemphasizes the centrality of the patient in decision-making and the continuous nature of the process. The Figure also illustrates that only a minority of process failures result in diagnostic errors, and a smaller proportion of diagnostic errors actually lead to patient harm. Conversely, it also shows that diagnostic errors can happen without any obvious process-failure points, and, similarly, patient harm can take place in the absence of any evident diagnostic errors.^36-38 Finally, it highlights the need to incorporate feedback from process failures, diagnostic errors, and favorable and unfavorable patient outcomes in order to inform future quality improvement efforts and research.

A significant proportion of diagnostic errors are due to system-related vulnerabilities, such as limitations in availability, adoption or quality of work force training, health informatics resources, and diagnostic capabilities. Lack of institutional culture that promotes safety and transparency also predisposes to diagnostic errors.^39,40 The other major domain of process failures is related to cognitive errors in clinician decision-making. Anchoring, confirmation bias, availability bias, and base-rate neglect are some of the common cognitive biases that, along with personality traits (aversion to risk or ambiguity, overconfidence) and affective biases (influence of emotion on decision-making), often determine the degree of utilization of resources and the possibility of suboptimal diagnostic performance.^41,42 Further, implicit biases related to age, race, gender, and sexual orientation contribute to disparities in access to health care and outcomes.⁴³ In a large number of cases of preventable adverse outcomes, however, there are multiple interdependent individual and system-related failure points that lead to diagnostic error and patient harm.^6,32

Challenges in Defining and Measuring Diagnostic Errors

In order to develop effective, evidence-based interventions to reduce diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients, it is essential to be able to first operationally define, and then accurately measure, diagnostic errors and the process failures that contribute to these errors in a standardized way that is reproducible across different settings.^6,44 There are a number of obstacles in this endeavor.

A fundamental problem is that establishing a diagnosis is not a single act but a process. Patterns of symptoms and clinical presentations often differ for the same disease. Information required to make a diagnosis is usually gathered in stages, where the clinician obtains additional data, while considering many possibilities, of which 1 may be ultimately correct. Diagnoses evolve over time and in different care settings. “The most likely diagnosis” is not always the same as “the final correct diagnosis.” Moreover, the diagnostic process is influenced by patients’ individual clinical courses and preferences over time. This makes determination of missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnoses challenging.^45,46

For hospitalized patients, generally the goal is to first rule out more serious and acute conditions (eg, pulmonary embolism or stroke), even if their probability is rather low. Conversely, a diagnosis that appears less consequential if delayed (eg, chronic anemia of unclear etiology) might not be pursued on an urgent basis, and is often left to outpatient providers to examine, but still may manifest in downstream harm (eg, delayed diagnosis of gastrointestinal malignancy or recurrent admissions for heart failure due to missed iron-deficiency anemia). Therefore, coming up with disease diagnosis likelihoods in hindsight may turn out to be highly subjective and not always accurate. This can be particularly difficult when clinician and other team deliberations are not recorded in their entirety.⁴⁷

Another hurdle in the practice of diagnostic medicine is to preserve the balance between underdiagnosing versus pursuing overly aggressive diagnostic approaches. Conducting laboratory, imaging, or other diagnostic studies without a clear shared understanding of how they would affect clinical decision-making (eg, use of prostate-specific antigen to detect prostate cancer) not only leads to increased costs but can also delay appropriate care. Worse, subsequent unnecessary diagnostic tests and treatments can sometimes lead to serious harm.^48,49

Finally, retrospective reviews by clinicians are subject to multiple potential limitations that include failure to create well-defined research questions, poorly developed inclusion and exclusion criteria, and issues related to inter- and intra-rater reliability.⁵⁰ These methodological deficiencies can occur despite following "best practice" guidelines during the study planning, execution, and analysis phases. They further add to the challenge of defining and measuring diagnostic errors.⁴⁷

Strategies to Improve Measurement of Diagnostic Errors

Development of new methodologies to reliably measure diagnostic errors is an area of active research. The advancement of uniform and universally agreed-upon frameworks to define and identify process failure points and diagnostic errors would help reduce measurement error and support development and testing of interventions that could be generalizable across different health care settings. To more accurately define and measure diagnostic errors, several novel approaches have been proposed (Table 2).

The Safer Dx framework is an all-round tool developed to advance the discipline of measuring diagnostic errors. For an episode of care under review, the instrument scores various items to determine the likelihood of a diagnostic error. These items evaluate multiple dimensions affecting diagnostic performance and measurements across 3 broad domains: structure (provider and organizational characteristics—from everyone involved with patient care, to computing infrastructure, to policies and regulations), process (elements of the patient-provider encounter, diagnostic test performance and follow-up, and subspecialty- and referral-specific factors), and outcome (establishing accurate and timely diagnosis as opposed to missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnosis). This instrument has been revised and can be further modified by a variety of stakeholders, including clinicians, health care organizations, and policymakers, to identify potential diagnostic errors in a standardized way for patient safety and quality improvement research.^51,52

Use of standardized tools, such as the Diagnosis Error Evaluation and Research (DEER) taxonomy, can help to identify and classify specific failure points across different diagnostic process dimensions.³⁷ These failure points can be classified into: issues related to patient presentation or access to health care; failure to obtain or misinterpretation of history or physical exam findings; errors in use of diagnostics tests due to technical or clinician-related factors; failures in appropriate weighing of evidence and hypothesis generation; errors associated with referral or consultation process; and failure to monitor the patient or obtain timely follow-up.³⁴ The DEER taxonomy can also be modified based on specific research questions and study populations. Further, it can be recategorized to correspond to Safer Dx framework diagnostic process dimensions to provide insights into reasons for specific process failures and to develop new interventions to mitigate errors and patient harm.⁶

Since a majority of diagnostic errors do not lead to actual harm, use of “triggers” or clues (eg, procedure-related complications, patient falls, transfers to a higher level of care, readmissions within 30 days) can be a more efficient method to identify diagnostic errors and adverse events that do cause harm. The Global Trigger Tool, developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, uses this strategy. This tool has been shown to identify a significantly higher number of serious adverse events than comparable methods.⁵³ This facilitates selection and development of strategies at the institutional level that are most likely to improve patient outcomes.²⁴

Encouraging and facilitating voluntary or prompted reporting from patients and clinicians can also play an important role in capturing diagnostic errors. Patients and clinicians are not only the key stakeholders but are also uniquely placed within the diagnostic process to detect and report potential errors.^25,54 Patient-safety-event reporting systems, such as RL6, play a vital role in reporting near-misses and adverse events. These systems provide a mechanism for team members at all levels within the hospital to contribute toward reporting patient adverse events, including those arising from diagnostic errors.⁵⁵ The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey is the first standardized, nationally reported patient survey designed to measure patients’ perceptions of their hospital experience. The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes HCAHPS results on its website 4 times a year, which serves as an important incentive for hospitals to improve patient safety and quality of health care delivery.⁵⁶

Another novel approach links multiple symptoms to a range of target diseases using the Symptom-Disease Pair Analysis of Diagnostic Error (SPADE) framework. Using “big data” technologies, this technique can help discover otherwise hidden symptom-disease links and improve overall diagnostic performance. This approach is proposed for both case-control (look-back) and cohort (look-forward) studies assessing diagnostic errors and misdiagnosis-related harms. For example, starting with a known diagnosis with high potential for harm (eg, stroke), the “look-back” approach can be used to identify high-risk symptoms (eg, dizziness, vertigo). In the “look-forward” approach, a single symptom or exposure risk factor known to be frequently misdiagnosed (eg, dizziness) can be analyzed to identify potential adverse disease outcomes (eg, stroke, migraine).⁵⁷

Many large ongoing studies looking at diagnostic errors among hospitalized patients, such as Utility of Predictive Systems to identify Inpatient Diagnostic Errors (UPSIDE),⁵⁸Patient Safety Learning Lab (PSLL),⁵⁹ and Achieving Diagnostic Excellence through Prevention and Teamwork (ADEPT),⁶⁰ are using structured chart review methodologies incorporating many of the above strategies in combination. Cases triggered by certain events (eg, ICU transfer, death, rapid response event, new or worsening acute kidney injury) are reviewed using validated tools, including Safer Dx framework and DEER taxonomy, to provide the most precise estimates of the burden of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients. These estimates may be much higher than previously predicted using traditional chart review approaches.^6,24 For example, a recently published study of 2809 random admissions in 11 Massachusetts hospitals identified 978 adverse events but only 10 diagnostic errors (diagnostic error rate, 0.4%).¹⁹ This was likely because the trigger method used in the study did not specifically examine the diagnostic process as critically as done by the Safer Dx framework and DEER taxonomy tools, thereby underestimating the total number of diagnostic errors. Further, these ongoing studies (eg, UPSIDE, ADEPT) aim to employ new and upcoming advanced machine-learning methods to create models that can improve overall diagnostic performance. This would pave the way to test and build novel, efficient, and scalable interventions to reduce diagnostic errors and improve patient outcomes.

Strategies to Improve Diagnostic Safety in Hospitalized Patients

Disease-specific biomedical research, as well as advances in laboratory, imaging, and other technologies, play a critical role in improving diagnostic accuracy. However, these technical approaches do not address many of the broader clinician- and system-level failure points and opportunities for improvement. Various patient-, provider-, and organizational-level interventions that could make diagnostic processes more resilient and reduce the risk of error and patient harm have been proposed.⁶¹

Among these strategies are approaches to empower patients and their families. Fostering therapeutic relationships between patients and members of the care team is essential to reducing diagnostic errors.⁶² Facilitating timely access to health records, ensuring transparency in decision making, and tailoring communication strategies to patients’ cultural and educational backgrounds can reduce harm.⁶³ Similarly, at the system level, enhancing communication among different providers by use of tools such as structured handoffs can prevent communication breakdowns and facilitate positive outcomes.⁶⁴

Interventions targeted at individual health care providers, such as educational programs to improve content-specific knowledge, can enhance diagnostic performance. Regular feedback, strategies to enhance equity, and fostering an environment where all providers are actively encouraged to think critically and participate in the diagnostic process (training programs to use “diagnostic time-outs” and making it a “team sport”) can improve clinical reasoning.^65,66 Use of standardized patients can help identify individual-level cognitive failure points and facilitate creation of new interventions to improve clinical decision-making processes.⁶⁷

Novel health information technologies can further augment these efforts. These include effective documentation by maintaining dynamic and accurate patient histories, problem lists, and medication lists^68-70; use of electronic health record–based algorithms to identify potential diagnostic delays for serious conditions^71,72; use of telemedicine technologies to improve accessibility and coordination⁷³;application of mobile health and wearable technologies to facilitate data-gathering and care delivery^74,75; and use of computerized decision-support tools, including applications to interpret electrocardiograms, imaging studies, and other diagnostic tests.⁷⁶

Use of precision medicine, powered by new artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is becoming more widespread. Algorithms powered by AI can augment and sometimes even outperform clinician decision-making in areas such as oncology, radiology, and primary care.⁷⁷ Creation of large biobanks like the All of Us research program can be used to study thousands of environmental and genetic risk factors and health conditions simultaneously, and help identify specific treatments that work best for people of different backgrounds.⁷⁸ Active research in these areas holds great promise in terms of how and when we diagnose diseases and make appropriate preventative and treatment decisions. Significant scientific, ethical, and regulatory challenges will need to be overcome before these technologies can address some of the most complex problems in health care.⁷⁹

Finally, diagnostic performance is affected by the external environment, including the functioning of the medical liability system. Diagnostic errors that lead to patient harm are a leading cause of malpractice claims.⁸⁰ Developing a legal environment, in collaboration with patient advocacy groups and health care organizations, that promotes and facilitates timely disclosure of diagnostic errors could decrease the incentive to hide errors, advance care processes, and improve outcomes.^81,82

Conclusion

The burden of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients is unacceptably high and remains an underemphasized cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Diagnostic errors often result from a breakdown in multiple interdependent processes that involve patient-, provider-, and system-level factors. Significant challenges remain in defining and identifying diagnostic errors as well as underlying process-failure points. The most effective interventions to reduce diagnostic errors will require greater patient participation in the diagnostic process and a mix of evidence-based interventions that promote individual-provider excellence as well as system-level changes. Further research and collaboration among various stakeholders should help improve diagnostic safety for hospitalized patients.

Corresponding author: Abhishek Goyal, MD, MPH; [email protected]

Disclosures: Dr. Dalal disclosed receiving income ≥ $250 from MayaMD.

Abstract

Diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients are a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Significant challenges in defining and measuring diagnostic errors and underlying process failure points have led to considerable variability in reported rates of diagnostic errors and adverse outcomes. In this article, we explore the diagnostic process and its discrete components, emphasizing the centrality of the patient in decision-making as well as the continuous nature of the process. We review the incidence of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients and different methodological approaches that have been used to arrive at these estimates. We discuss different but interdependent provider- and system-related process-failure points that lead to diagnostic errors. We examine specific challenges related to measurement of diagnostic errors and describe traditional and novel approaches that are being used to obtain the most precise estimates. Finally, we examine various patient-, provider-, and organizational-level interventions that have been proposed to improve diagnostic safety in hospitalized patients.

Keywords: diagnostic error, hospital medicine, patient safety.

Diagnosis is defined as a “pre-existing set of categories agreed upon by the medical profession to designate a specific condition.”¹ The diagnostic process involves obtaining a clinical history, performing a physical examination, conducting diagnostic testing, and consulting with other clinical providers to gather data that are relevant to understanding the underlying disease processes. This exercise involves generating hypotheses and updating prior probabilities as more information and evidence become available. Throughout this process of information gathering, integration, and interpretation, there is an ongoing assessment of whether sufficient and necessary knowledge has been obtained to make an accurate diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment.²

Diagnostic error is defined as a missed opportunity to make a timely diagnosis as part of this iterative process, including the failure of communicating the diagnosis to the patient in a timely manner.³ It can be categorized as a missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnosis based on available evidence at the time. Establishing the correct diagnosis has important implications. A timely and precise diagnosis ensures the patient the highest probability of having a positive health outcome that reflects an appropriate understanding of underlying disease processes and is consistent with their overall goals of care.³ When diagnostic errors occur, they can cause patient harm. Adverse events due to medical errors, including diagnostic errors, are estimated to be the third leading cause of death in the United States.⁴ Most people will experience at least 1 diagnostic error in their lifetime. In the 2015 National Academy of Medicine report Improving Diagnosis in Healthcare, diagnostic errors were identified as a major hazard as well as an opportunity to improve patient outcomes.²

Diagnostic errors during hospitalizations are especially concerning, as they are more likely to be implicated in a wider spectrum of harm, including permanent disability and death. This has become even more relevant for hospital medicine physicians and other clinical providers as they encounter increasing cognitive and administrative workloads, rising dissatisfaction and burnout, and unique obstacles such as night-time scheduling.⁵

Incidence of Diagnostic Errors in Hospitalized Patients

Several methodological approaches have been used to estimate the incidence of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients. These include retrospective reviews of a sample of all hospital admissions, evaluations of selected adverse outcomes including autopsy studies, patient and provider surveys, and malpractice claims. Laboratory testing audits and secondary reviews in other diagnostic subspecialities (eg, radiology, pathology, and microbiology) are also essential to improving diagnostic performance in these specialized fields, which in turn affects overall hospital diagnostic error rates.^6-8 These diverse approaches provide unique insights regarding our ability to assess the degree to which potential harms, ranging from temporary impairment to permanent disability, to death, are attributable to different failure points in the diagnostic process.

Large retrospective chart reviews of random hospital admissions remain the most accurate way to determine the overall incidence of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients.⁹ The Harvard Medical Practice Study, published in 1991, laid the groundwork for measuring the incidence of adverse events in hospitalized patients and assessing their relation to medical error, negligence, and disability. Reviewing 30,121 randomly selected records from 51 randomly selected acute care hospitals in New York State, the study found that adverse events occurred in 3.7% of hospitalizations, diagnostic errors accounted for 13.8% of these events, and these errors were likely attributable to negligence in 74.7% of cases. The study not only outlined individual-level process failures, but also focused attention on some of the systemic causes, setting the agenda for quality improvement research in hospital-based care for years to come.^10-12 A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of 22 hospital admission studies found a pooled rate of 0.7% (95% CI, 0.5%-1.1%) for harmful diagnostic errors.⁹ It found significant variations in the rates of adverse events, diagnostic errors, and range of diagnoses that were missed. This was primarily because of variabilities in pre-test probabilities in detecting diagnostic errors in these specific cohorts, as well as due to heterogeneity in study definitions and methodologies, especially regarding how they defined and measured “diagnostic error.” The analysis, however, did not account for diagnostic errors that were not related to patient harm (missed opportunities); therefore, it likely significantly underestimated the true incidence of diagnostic errors in these study populations. Table 1 summarizes some of key studies that have examined the incidence of harmful diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients.^9-21

The chief limitation of reviewing random hospital admissions is that, since overall rates of diagnostic errors are still relatively low, a large number of case reviews are required to identify a sufficient sample of adverse outcomes to gain a meaningful understanding of the underlying process failure points and develop tools for remediation. Patient and provider surveys or data from malpractice claims can be high-yield starting points for research on process errors.^22,23 Reviews of enriched cohorts of adverse outcomes, such as rapid-response events, intensive care unit (ICU) transfers, deaths, and hospital readmissions, can be an efficient way to identify process failures that lead to greatest harm. Depending on the research approach and the types of underlying patient populations sampled, rates of diagnostic errors in these high-risk groups have been estimated to be approximately 5% to 20%, or even higher.^6,24-31 For example, a retrospective study of 391 cases of unplanned 7-day readmissions found that 5.6% of cases contained at least 1 diagnostic error during the index admission.³² In a study conducted at 6 Belgian acute-care hospitals, 56% of patients requiring an unplanned transfer to a higher level of care were determined to have had an adverse event, and of these adverse events, 12.4% of cases were associated with errors in diagnosis.²⁹ A systematic review of 16 hospital-based studies estimated that 3.1% of all inpatient deaths were likely preventable, which corresponded to 22,165 deaths annually in the United States.³⁰ Another such review of 31 autopsy studies reported that 28% of autopsied ICU patients had at least 1 misdiagnosis; of these diagnostic errors, 8% were classified as potentially lethal, and 15% were considered major but not lethal.³¹ Significant drawbacks of such enriched cohort studies, however, are their poor generalizability and inability to detect failure points that do not lead to patient harm (near-miss events).³³

Causes of Diagnostic Errors in Hospitalized Patients

All aspects of the diagnostic process are susceptible to errors. These errors stem from a variety of faulty processes, including failure of the patient to engage with the health care system (eg, due to lack of insurance or transportation, or delay in seeking care); failure in information gathering (eg, missed history or exam findings, ordering wrong tests, laboratory errors); failure in information interpretation (eg, exam finding or test result misinterpretation); inaccurate hypothesis generation (eg, due to suboptimal prioritization or weighing of supporting evidence); and failure in communication (eg, with other team members or with the patient).^2,34 Reasons for diagnostic process failures vary widely across different health care settings. While clinician assessment errors (eg, failure to consider or alternatively overweigh competing diagnoses) and errors in testing and the monitoring phase (eg, failure to order or follow up diagnostic tests) can lead to a majority of diagnostic errors in some patient populations, in other settings, social (eg, poor health literacy, punitive cultural practices) and economic factors (eg, lack of access to appropriate diagnostic tests or to specialty expertise) play a more prominent role.^34,35

The Figure describes the relationship between components of the diagnostic process and subsequent outcomes, including diagnostic process failures, diagnostic errors, and absence or presence of patient harm.^2,36,37 It reemphasizes the centrality of the patient in decision-making and the continuous nature of the process. The Figure also illustrates that only a minority of process failures result in diagnostic errors, and a smaller proportion of diagnostic errors actually lead to patient harm. Conversely, it also shows that diagnostic errors can happen without any obvious process-failure points, and, similarly, patient harm can take place in the absence of any evident diagnostic errors.^36-38 Finally, it highlights the need to incorporate feedback from process failures, diagnostic errors, and favorable and unfavorable patient outcomes in order to inform future quality improvement efforts and research.

A significant proportion of diagnostic errors are due to system-related vulnerabilities, such as limitations in availability, adoption or quality of work force training, health informatics resources, and diagnostic capabilities. Lack of institutional culture that promotes safety and transparency also predisposes to diagnostic errors.^39,40 The other major domain of process failures is related to cognitive errors in clinician decision-making. Anchoring, confirmation bias, availability bias, and base-rate neglect are some of the common cognitive biases that, along with personality traits (aversion to risk or ambiguity, overconfidence) and affective biases (influence of emotion on decision-making), often determine the degree of utilization of resources and the possibility of suboptimal diagnostic performance.^41,42 Further, implicit biases related to age, race, gender, and sexual orientation contribute to disparities in access to health care and outcomes.⁴³ In a large number of cases of preventable adverse outcomes, however, there are multiple interdependent individual and system-related failure points that lead to diagnostic error and patient harm.^6,32

Challenges in Defining and Measuring Diagnostic Errors

In order to develop effective, evidence-based interventions to reduce diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients, it is essential to be able to first operationally define, and then accurately measure, diagnostic errors and the process failures that contribute to these errors in a standardized way that is reproducible across different settings.^6,44 There are a number of obstacles in this endeavor.

A fundamental problem is that establishing a diagnosis is not a single act but a process. Patterns of symptoms and clinical presentations often differ for the same disease. Information required to make a diagnosis is usually gathered in stages, where the clinician obtains additional data, while considering many possibilities, of which 1 may be ultimately correct. Diagnoses evolve over time and in different care settings. “The most likely diagnosis” is not always the same as “the final correct diagnosis.” Moreover, the diagnostic process is influenced by patients’ individual clinical courses and preferences over time. This makes determination of missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnoses challenging.^45,46

For hospitalized patients, generally the goal is to first rule out more serious and acute conditions (eg, pulmonary embolism or stroke), even if their probability is rather low. Conversely, a diagnosis that appears less consequential if delayed (eg, chronic anemia of unclear etiology) might not be pursued on an urgent basis, and is often left to outpatient providers to examine, but still may manifest in downstream harm (eg, delayed diagnosis of gastrointestinal malignancy or recurrent admissions for heart failure due to missed iron-deficiency anemia). Therefore, coming up with disease diagnosis likelihoods in hindsight may turn out to be highly subjective and not always accurate. This can be particularly difficult when clinician and other team deliberations are not recorded in their entirety.⁴⁷

Another hurdle in the practice of diagnostic medicine is to preserve the balance between underdiagnosing versus pursuing overly aggressive diagnostic approaches. Conducting laboratory, imaging, or other diagnostic studies without a clear shared understanding of how they would affect clinical decision-making (eg, use of prostate-specific antigen to detect prostate cancer) not only leads to increased costs but can also delay appropriate care. Worse, subsequent unnecessary diagnostic tests and treatments can sometimes lead to serious harm.^48,49

Finally, retrospective reviews by clinicians are subject to multiple potential limitations that include failure to create well-defined research questions, poorly developed inclusion and exclusion criteria, and issues related to inter- and intra-rater reliability.⁵⁰ These methodological deficiencies can occur despite following "best practice" guidelines during the study planning, execution, and analysis phases. They further add to the challenge of defining and measuring diagnostic errors.⁴⁷

Strategies to Improve Measurement of Diagnostic Errors

Development of new methodologies to reliably measure diagnostic errors is an area of active research. The advancement of uniform and universally agreed-upon frameworks to define and identify process failure points and diagnostic errors would help reduce measurement error and support development and testing of interventions that could be generalizable across different health care settings. To more accurately define and measure diagnostic errors, several novel approaches have been proposed (Table 2).

The Safer Dx framework is an all-round tool developed to advance the discipline of measuring diagnostic errors. For an episode of care under review, the instrument scores various items to determine the likelihood of a diagnostic error. These items evaluate multiple dimensions affecting diagnostic performance and measurements across 3 broad domains: structure (provider and organizational characteristics—from everyone involved with patient care, to computing infrastructure, to policies and regulations), process (elements of the patient-provider encounter, diagnostic test performance and follow-up, and subspecialty- and referral-specific factors), and outcome (establishing accurate and timely diagnosis as opposed to missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnosis). This instrument has been revised and can be further modified by a variety of stakeholders, including clinicians, health care organizations, and policymakers, to identify potential diagnostic errors in a standardized way for patient safety and quality improvement research.^51,52

Use of standardized tools, such as the Diagnosis Error Evaluation and Research (DEER) taxonomy, can help to identify and classify specific failure points across different diagnostic process dimensions.³⁷ These failure points can be classified into: issues related to patient presentation or access to health care; failure to obtain or misinterpretation of history or physical exam findings; errors in use of diagnostics tests due to technical or clinician-related factors; failures in appropriate weighing of evidence and hypothesis generation; errors associated with referral or consultation process; and failure to monitor the patient or obtain timely follow-up.³⁴ The DEER taxonomy can also be modified based on specific research questions and study populations. Further, it can be recategorized to correspond to Safer Dx framework diagnostic process dimensions to provide insights into reasons for specific process failures and to develop new interventions to mitigate errors and patient harm.⁶

Since a majority of diagnostic errors do not lead to actual harm, use of “triggers” or clues (eg, procedure-related complications, patient falls, transfers to a higher level of care, readmissions within 30 days) can be a more efficient method to identify diagnostic errors and adverse events that do cause harm. The Global Trigger Tool, developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, uses this strategy. This tool has been shown to identify a significantly higher number of serious adverse events than comparable methods.⁵³ This facilitates selection and development of strategies at the institutional level that are most likely to improve patient outcomes.²⁴

Encouraging and facilitating voluntary or prompted reporting from patients and clinicians can also play an important role in capturing diagnostic errors. Patients and clinicians are not only the key stakeholders but are also uniquely placed within the diagnostic process to detect and report potential errors.^25,54 Patient-safety-event reporting systems, such as RL6, play a vital role in reporting near-misses and adverse events. These systems provide a mechanism for team members at all levels within the hospital to contribute toward reporting patient adverse events, including those arising from diagnostic errors.⁵⁵ The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey is the first standardized, nationally reported patient survey designed to measure patients’ perceptions of their hospital experience. The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes HCAHPS results on its website 4 times a year, which serves as an important incentive for hospitals to improve patient safety and quality of health care delivery.⁵⁶

Another novel approach links multiple symptoms to a range of target diseases using the Symptom-Disease Pair Analysis of Diagnostic Error (SPADE) framework. Using “big data” technologies, this technique can help discover otherwise hidden symptom-disease links and improve overall diagnostic performance. This approach is proposed for both case-control (look-back) and cohort (look-forward) studies assessing diagnostic errors and misdiagnosis-related harms. For example, starting with a known diagnosis with high potential for harm (eg, stroke), the “look-back” approach can be used to identify high-risk symptoms (eg, dizziness, vertigo). In the “look-forward” approach, a single symptom or exposure risk factor known to be frequently misdiagnosed (eg, dizziness) can be analyzed to identify potential adverse disease outcomes (eg, stroke, migraine).⁵⁷

Many large ongoing studies looking at diagnostic errors among hospitalized patients, such as Utility of Predictive Systems to identify Inpatient Diagnostic Errors (UPSIDE),⁵⁸Patient Safety Learning Lab (PSLL),⁵⁹ and Achieving Diagnostic Excellence through Prevention and Teamwork (ADEPT),⁶⁰ are using structured chart review methodologies incorporating many of the above strategies in combination. Cases triggered by certain events (eg, ICU transfer, death, rapid response event, new or worsening acute kidney injury) are reviewed using validated tools, including Safer Dx framework and DEER taxonomy, to provide the most precise estimates of the burden of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients. These estimates may be much higher than previously predicted using traditional chart review approaches.^6,24 For example, a recently published study of 2809 random admissions in 11 Massachusetts hospitals identified 978 adverse events but only 10 diagnostic errors (diagnostic error rate, 0.4%).¹⁹ This was likely because the trigger method used in the study did not specifically examine the diagnostic process as critically as done by the Safer Dx framework and DEER taxonomy tools, thereby underestimating the total number of diagnostic errors. Further, these ongoing studies (eg, UPSIDE, ADEPT) aim to employ new and upcoming advanced machine-learning methods to create models that can improve overall diagnostic performance. This would pave the way to test and build novel, efficient, and scalable interventions to reduce diagnostic errors and improve patient outcomes.

Strategies to Improve Diagnostic Safety in Hospitalized Patients

Disease-specific biomedical research, as well as advances in laboratory, imaging, and other technologies, play a critical role in improving diagnostic accuracy. However, these technical approaches do not address many of the broader clinician- and system-level failure points and opportunities for improvement. Various patient-, provider-, and organizational-level interventions that could make diagnostic processes more resilient and reduce the risk of error and patient harm have been proposed.⁶¹

Among these strategies are approaches to empower patients and their families. Fostering therapeutic relationships between patients and members of the care team is essential to reducing diagnostic errors.⁶² Facilitating timely access to health records, ensuring transparency in decision making, and tailoring communication strategies to patients’ cultural and educational backgrounds can reduce harm.⁶³ Similarly, at the system level, enhancing communication among different providers by use of tools such as structured handoffs can prevent communication breakdowns and facilitate positive outcomes.⁶⁴

Interventions targeted at individual health care providers, such as educational programs to improve content-specific knowledge, can enhance diagnostic performance. Regular feedback, strategies to enhance equity, and fostering an environment where all providers are actively encouraged to think critically and participate in the diagnostic process (training programs to use “diagnostic time-outs” and making it a “team sport”) can improve clinical reasoning.^65,66 Use of standardized patients can help identify individual-level cognitive failure points and facilitate creation of new interventions to improve clinical decision-making processes.⁶⁷

Novel health information technologies can further augment these efforts. These include effective documentation by maintaining dynamic and accurate patient histories, problem lists, and medication lists^68-70; use of electronic health record–based algorithms to identify potential diagnostic delays for serious conditions^71,72; use of telemedicine technologies to improve accessibility and coordination⁷³;application of mobile health and wearable technologies to facilitate data-gathering and care delivery^74,75; and use of computerized decision-support tools, including applications to interpret electrocardiograms, imaging studies, and other diagnostic tests.⁷⁶

Use of precision medicine, powered by new artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is becoming more widespread. Algorithms powered by AI can augment and sometimes even outperform clinician decision-making in areas such as oncology, radiology, and primary care.⁷⁷ Creation of large biobanks like the All of Us research program can be used to study thousands of environmental and genetic risk factors and health conditions simultaneously, and help identify specific treatments that work best for people of different backgrounds.⁷⁸ Active research in these areas holds great promise in terms of how and when we diagnose diseases and make appropriate preventative and treatment decisions. Significant scientific, ethical, and regulatory challenges will need to be overcome before these technologies can address some of the most complex problems in health care.⁷⁹

Finally, diagnostic performance is affected by the external environment, including the functioning of the medical liability system. Diagnostic errors that lead to patient harm are a leading cause of malpractice claims.⁸⁰ Developing a legal environment, in collaboration with patient advocacy groups and health care organizations, that promotes and facilitates timely disclosure of diagnostic errors could decrease the incentive to hide errors, advance care processes, and improve outcomes.^81,82

Conclusion

The burden of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients is unacceptably high and remains an underemphasized cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Diagnostic errors often result from a breakdown in multiple interdependent processes that involve patient-, provider-, and system-level factors. Significant challenges remain in defining and identifying diagnostic errors as well as underlying process-failure points. The most effective interventions to reduce diagnostic errors will require greater patient participation in the diagnostic process and a mix of evidence-based interventions that promote individual-provider excellence as well as system-level changes. Further research and collaboration among various stakeholders should help improve diagnostic safety for hospitalized patients.

Corresponding author: Abhishek Goyal, MD, MPH; [email protected]

Disclosures: Dr. Dalal disclosed receiving income ≥ $250 from MayaMD.

Abstract

Diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients are a leading cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Significant challenges in defining and measuring diagnostic errors and underlying process failure points have led to considerable variability in reported rates of diagnostic errors and adverse outcomes. In this article, we explore the diagnostic process and its discrete components, emphasizing the centrality of the patient in decision-making as well as the continuous nature of the process. We review the incidence of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients and different methodological approaches that have been used to arrive at these estimates. We discuss different but interdependent provider- and system-related process-failure points that lead to diagnostic errors. We examine specific challenges related to measurement of diagnostic errors and describe traditional and novel approaches that are being used to obtain the most precise estimates. Finally, we examine various patient-, provider-, and organizational-level interventions that have been proposed to improve diagnostic safety in hospitalized patients.

Keywords: diagnostic error, hospital medicine, patient safety.

Diagnosis is defined as a “pre-existing set of categories agreed upon by the medical profession to designate a specific condition.”¹ The diagnostic process involves obtaining a clinical history, performing a physical examination, conducting diagnostic testing, and consulting with other clinical providers to gather data that are relevant to understanding the underlying disease processes. This exercise involves generating hypotheses and updating prior probabilities as more information and evidence become available. Throughout this process of information gathering, integration, and interpretation, there is an ongoing assessment of whether sufficient and necessary knowledge has been obtained to make an accurate diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment.²

Diagnostic error is defined as a missed opportunity to make a timely diagnosis as part of this iterative process, including the failure of communicating the diagnosis to the patient in a timely manner.³ It can be categorized as a missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnosis based on available evidence at the time. Establishing the correct diagnosis has important implications. A timely and precise diagnosis ensures the patient the highest probability of having a positive health outcome that reflects an appropriate understanding of underlying disease processes and is consistent with their overall goals of care.³ When diagnostic errors occur, they can cause patient harm. Adverse events due to medical errors, including diagnostic errors, are estimated to be the third leading cause of death in the United States.⁴ Most people will experience at least 1 diagnostic error in their lifetime. In the 2015 National Academy of Medicine report Improving Diagnosis in Healthcare, diagnostic errors were identified as a major hazard as well as an opportunity to improve patient outcomes.²

Diagnostic errors during hospitalizations are especially concerning, as they are more likely to be implicated in a wider spectrum of harm, including permanent disability and death. This has become even more relevant for hospital medicine physicians and other clinical providers as they encounter increasing cognitive and administrative workloads, rising dissatisfaction and burnout, and unique obstacles such as night-time scheduling.⁵

Incidence of Diagnostic Errors in Hospitalized Patients

Several methodological approaches have been used to estimate the incidence of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients. These include retrospective reviews of a sample of all hospital admissions, evaluations of selected adverse outcomes including autopsy studies, patient and provider surveys, and malpractice claims. Laboratory testing audits and secondary reviews in other diagnostic subspecialities (eg, radiology, pathology, and microbiology) are also essential to improving diagnostic performance in these specialized fields, which in turn affects overall hospital diagnostic error rates.^6-8 These diverse approaches provide unique insights regarding our ability to assess the degree to which potential harms, ranging from temporary impairment to permanent disability, to death, are attributable to different failure points in the diagnostic process.

Large retrospective chart reviews of random hospital admissions remain the most accurate way to determine the overall incidence of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients.⁹ The Harvard Medical Practice Study, published in 1991, laid the groundwork for measuring the incidence of adverse events in hospitalized patients and assessing their relation to medical error, negligence, and disability. Reviewing 30,121 randomly selected records from 51 randomly selected acute care hospitals in New York State, the study found that adverse events occurred in 3.7% of hospitalizations, diagnostic errors accounted for 13.8% of these events, and these errors were likely attributable to negligence in 74.7% of cases. The study not only outlined individual-level process failures, but also focused attention on some of the systemic causes, setting the agenda for quality improvement research in hospital-based care for years to come.^10-12 A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of 22 hospital admission studies found a pooled rate of 0.7% (95% CI, 0.5%-1.1%) for harmful diagnostic errors.⁹ It found significant variations in the rates of adverse events, diagnostic errors, and range of diagnoses that were missed. This was primarily because of variabilities in pre-test probabilities in detecting diagnostic errors in these specific cohorts, as well as due to heterogeneity in study definitions and methodologies, especially regarding how they defined and measured “diagnostic error.” The analysis, however, did not account for diagnostic errors that were not related to patient harm (missed opportunities); therefore, it likely significantly underestimated the true incidence of diagnostic errors in these study populations. Table 1 summarizes some of key studies that have examined the incidence of harmful diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients.^9-21

The chief limitation of reviewing random hospital admissions is that, since overall rates of diagnostic errors are still relatively low, a large number of case reviews are required to identify a sufficient sample of adverse outcomes to gain a meaningful understanding of the underlying process failure points and develop tools for remediation. Patient and provider surveys or data from malpractice claims can be high-yield starting points for research on process errors.^22,23 Reviews of enriched cohorts of adverse outcomes, such as rapid-response events, intensive care unit (ICU) transfers, deaths, and hospital readmissions, can be an efficient way to identify process failures that lead to greatest harm. Depending on the research approach and the types of underlying patient populations sampled, rates of diagnostic errors in these high-risk groups have been estimated to be approximately 5% to 20%, or even higher.^6,24-31 For example, a retrospective study of 391 cases of unplanned 7-day readmissions found that 5.6% of cases contained at least 1 diagnostic error during the index admission.³² In a study conducted at 6 Belgian acute-care hospitals, 56% of patients requiring an unplanned transfer to a higher level of care were determined to have had an adverse event, and of these adverse events, 12.4% of cases were associated with errors in diagnosis.²⁹ A systematic review of 16 hospital-based studies estimated that 3.1% of all inpatient deaths were likely preventable, which corresponded to 22,165 deaths annually in the United States.³⁰ Another such review of 31 autopsy studies reported that 28% of autopsied ICU patients had at least 1 misdiagnosis; of these diagnostic errors, 8% were classified as potentially lethal, and 15% were considered major but not lethal.³¹ Significant drawbacks of such enriched cohort studies, however, are their poor generalizability and inability to detect failure points that do not lead to patient harm (near-miss events).³³

Causes of Diagnostic Errors in Hospitalized Patients

All aspects of the diagnostic process are susceptible to errors. These errors stem from a variety of faulty processes, including failure of the patient to engage with the health care system (eg, due to lack of insurance or transportation, or delay in seeking care); failure in information gathering (eg, missed history or exam findings, ordering wrong tests, laboratory errors); failure in information interpretation (eg, exam finding or test result misinterpretation); inaccurate hypothesis generation (eg, due to suboptimal prioritization or weighing of supporting evidence); and failure in communication (eg, with other team members or with the patient).^2,34 Reasons for diagnostic process failures vary widely across different health care settings. While clinician assessment errors (eg, failure to consider or alternatively overweigh competing diagnoses) and errors in testing and the monitoring phase (eg, failure to order or follow up diagnostic tests) can lead to a majority of diagnostic errors in some patient populations, in other settings, social (eg, poor health literacy, punitive cultural practices) and economic factors (eg, lack of access to appropriate diagnostic tests or to specialty expertise) play a more prominent role.^34,35

The Figure describes the relationship between components of the diagnostic process and subsequent outcomes, including diagnostic process failures, diagnostic errors, and absence or presence of patient harm.^2,36,37 It reemphasizes the centrality of the patient in decision-making and the continuous nature of the process. The Figure also illustrates that only a minority of process failures result in diagnostic errors, and a smaller proportion of diagnostic errors actually lead to patient harm. Conversely, it also shows that diagnostic errors can happen without any obvious process-failure points, and, similarly, patient harm can take place in the absence of any evident diagnostic errors.^36-38 Finally, it highlights the need to incorporate feedback from process failures, diagnostic errors, and favorable and unfavorable patient outcomes in order to inform future quality improvement efforts and research.

A significant proportion of diagnostic errors are due to system-related vulnerabilities, such as limitations in availability, adoption or quality of work force training, health informatics resources, and diagnostic capabilities. Lack of institutional culture that promotes safety and transparency also predisposes to diagnostic errors.^39,40 The other major domain of process failures is related to cognitive errors in clinician decision-making. Anchoring, confirmation bias, availability bias, and base-rate neglect are some of the common cognitive biases that, along with personality traits (aversion to risk or ambiguity, overconfidence) and affective biases (influence of emotion on decision-making), often determine the degree of utilization of resources and the possibility of suboptimal diagnostic performance.^41,42 Further, implicit biases related to age, race, gender, and sexual orientation contribute to disparities in access to health care and outcomes.⁴³ In a large number of cases of preventable adverse outcomes, however, there are multiple interdependent individual and system-related failure points that lead to diagnostic error and patient harm.^6,32

Challenges in Defining and Measuring Diagnostic Errors

In order to develop effective, evidence-based interventions to reduce diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients, it is essential to be able to first operationally define, and then accurately measure, diagnostic errors and the process failures that contribute to these errors in a standardized way that is reproducible across different settings.^6,44 There are a number of obstacles in this endeavor.

A fundamental problem is that establishing a diagnosis is not a single act but a process. Patterns of symptoms and clinical presentations often differ for the same disease. Information required to make a diagnosis is usually gathered in stages, where the clinician obtains additional data, while considering many possibilities, of which 1 may be ultimately correct. Diagnoses evolve over time and in different care settings. “The most likely diagnosis” is not always the same as “the final correct diagnosis.” Moreover, the diagnostic process is influenced by patients’ individual clinical courses and preferences over time. This makes determination of missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnoses challenging.^45,46

For hospitalized patients, generally the goal is to first rule out more serious and acute conditions (eg, pulmonary embolism or stroke), even if their probability is rather low. Conversely, a diagnosis that appears less consequential if delayed (eg, chronic anemia of unclear etiology) might not be pursued on an urgent basis, and is often left to outpatient providers to examine, but still may manifest in downstream harm (eg, delayed diagnosis of gastrointestinal malignancy or recurrent admissions for heart failure due to missed iron-deficiency anemia). Therefore, coming up with disease diagnosis likelihoods in hindsight may turn out to be highly subjective and not always accurate. This can be particularly difficult when clinician and other team deliberations are not recorded in their entirety.⁴⁷

Another hurdle in the practice of diagnostic medicine is to preserve the balance between underdiagnosing versus pursuing overly aggressive diagnostic approaches. Conducting laboratory, imaging, or other diagnostic studies without a clear shared understanding of how they would affect clinical decision-making (eg, use of prostate-specific antigen to detect prostate cancer) not only leads to increased costs but can also delay appropriate care. Worse, subsequent unnecessary diagnostic tests and treatments can sometimes lead to serious harm.^48,49

Finally, retrospective reviews by clinicians are subject to multiple potential limitations that include failure to create well-defined research questions, poorly developed inclusion and exclusion criteria, and issues related to inter- and intra-rater reliability.⁵⁰ These methodological deficiencies can occur despite following "best practice" guidelines during the study planning, execution, and analysis phases. They further add to the challenge of defining and measuring diagnostic errors.⁴⁷

Strategies to Improve Measurement of Diagnostic Errors

Development of new methodologies to reliably measure diagnostic errors is an area of active research. The advancement of uniform and universally agreed-upon frameworks to define and identify process failure points and diagnostic errors would help reduce measurement error and support development and testing of interventions that could be generalizable across different health care settings. To more accurately define and measure diagnostic errors, several novel approaches have been proposed (Table 2).

The Safer Dx framework is an all-round tool developed to advance the discipline of measuring diagnostic errors. For an episode of care under review, the instrument scores various items to determine the likelihood of a diagnostic error. These items evaluate multiple dimensions affecting diagnostic performance and measurements across 3 broad domains: structure (provider and organizational characteristics—from everyone involved with patient care, to computing infrastructure, to policies and regulations), process (elements of the patient-provider encounter, diagnostic test performance and follow-up, and subspecialty- and referral-specific factors), and outcome (establishing accurate and timely diagnosis as opposed to missed, delayed, or incorrect diagnosis). This instrument has been revised and can be further modified by a variety of stakeholders, including clinicians, health care organizations, and policymakers, to identify potential diagnostic errors in a standardized way for patient safety and quality improvement research.^51,52

Use of standardized tools, such as the Diagnosis Error Evaluation and Research (DEER) taxonomy, can help to identify and classify specific failure points across different diagnostic process dimensions.³⁷ These failure points can be classified into: issues related to patient presentation or access to health care; failure to obtain or misinterpretation of history or physical exam findings; errors in use of diagnostics tests due to technical or clinician-related factors; failures in appropriate weighing of evidence and hypothesis generation; errors associated with referral or consultation process; and failure to monitor the patient or obtain timely follow-up.³⁴ The DEER taxonomy can also be modified based on specific research questions and study populations. Further, it can be recategorized to correspond to Safer Dx framework diagnostic process dimensions to provide insights into reasons for specific process failures and to develop new interventions to mitigate errors and patient harm.⁶

Since a majority of diagnostic errors do not lead to actual harm, use of “triggers” or clues (eg, procedure-related complications, patient falls, transfers to a higher level of care, readmissions within 30 days) can be a more efficient method to identify diagnostic errors and adverse events that do cause harm. The Global Trigger Tool, developed by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, uses this strategy. This tool has been shown to identify a significantly higher number of serious adverse events than comparable methods.⁵³ This facilitates selection and development of strategies at the institutional level that are most likely to improve patient outcomes.²⁴

Encouraging and facilitating voluntary or prompted reporting from patients and clinicians can also play an important role in capturing diagnostic errors. Patients and clinicians are not only the key stakeholders but are also uniquely placed within the diagnostic process to detect and report potential errors.^25,54 Patient-safety-event reporting systems, such as RL6, play a vital role in reporting near-misses and adverse events. These systems provide a mechanism for team members at all levels within the hospital to contribute toward reporting patient adverse events, including those arising from diagnostic errors.⁵⁵ The Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey is the first standardized, nationally reported patient survey designed to measure patients’ perceptions of their hospital experience. The US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes HCAHPS results on its website 4 times a year, which serves as an important incentive for hospitals to improve patient safety and quality of health care delivery.⁵⁶

Another novel approach links multiple symptoms to a range of target diseases using the Symptom-Disease Pair Analysis of Diagnostic Error (SPADE) framework. Using “big data” technologies, this technique can help discover otherwise hidden symptom-disease links and improve overall diagnostic performance. This approach is proposed for both case-control (look-back) and cohort (look-forward) studies assessing diagnostic errors and misdiagnosis-related harms. For example, starting with a known diagnosis with high potential for harm (eg, stroke), the “look-back” approach can be used to identify high-risk symptoms (eg, dizziness, vertigo). In the “look-forward” approach, a single symptom or exposure risk factor known to be frequently misdiagnosed (eg, dizziness) can be analyzed to identify potential adverse disease outcomes (eg, stroke, migraine).⁵⁷

Many large ongoing studies looking at diagnostic errors among hospitalized patients, such as Utility of Predictive Systems to identify Inpatient Diagnostic Errors (UPSIDE),⁵⁸Patient Safety Learning Lab (PSLL),⁵⁹ and Achieving Diagnostic Excellence through Prevention and Teamwork (ADEPT),⁶⁰ are using structured chart review methodologies incorporating many of the above strategies in combination. Cases triggered by certain events (eg, ICU transfer, death, rapid response event, new or worsening acute kidney injury) are reviewed using validated tools, including Safer Dx framework and DEER taxonomy, to provide the most precise estimates of the burden of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients. These estimates may be much higher than previously predicted using traditional chart review approaches.^6,24 For example, a recently published study of 2809 random admissions in 11 Massachusetts hospitals identified 978 adverse events but only 10 diagnostic errors (diagnostic error rate, 0.4%).¹⁹ This was likely because the trigger method used in the study did not specifically examine the diagnostic process as critically as done by the Safer Dx framework and DEER taxonomy tools, thereby underestimating the total number of diagnostic errors. Further, these ongoing studies (eg, UPSIDE, ADEPT) aim to employ new and upcoming advanced machine-learning methods to create models that can improve overall diagnostic performance. This would pave the way to test and build novel, efficient, and scalable interventions to reduce diagnostic errors and improve patient outcomes.

Strategies to Improve Diagnostic Safety in Hospitalized Patients

Disease-specific biomedical research, as well as advances in laboratory, imaging, and other technologies, play a critical role in improving diagnostic accuracy. However, these technical approaches do not address many of the broader clinician- and system-level failure points and opportunities for improvement. Various patient-, provider-, and organizational-level interventions that could make diagnostic processes more resilient and reduce the risk of error and patient harm have been proposed.⁶¹

Among these strategies are approaches to empower patients and their families. Fostering therapeutic relationships between patients and members of the care team is essential to reducing diagnostic errors.⁶² Facilitating timely access to health records, ensuring transparency in decision making, and tailoring communication strategies to patients’ cultural and educational backgrounds can reduce harm.⁶³ Similarly, at the system level, enhancing communication among different providers by use of tools such as structured handoffs can prevent communication breakdowns and facilitate positive outcomes.⁶⁴

Interventions targeted at individual health care providers, such as educational programs to improve content-specific knowledge, can enhance diagnostic performance. Regular feedback, strategies to enhance equity, and fostering an environment where all providers are actively encouraged to think critically and participate in the diagnostic process (training programs to use “diagnostic time-outs” and making it a “team sport”) can improve clinical reasoning.^65,66 Use of standardized patients can help identify individual-level cognitive failure points and facilitate creation of new interventions to improve clinical decision-making processes.⁶⁷

Novel health information technologies can further augment these efforts. These include effective documentation by maintaining dynamic and accurate patient histories, problem lists, and medication lists^68-70; use of electronic health record–based algorithms to identify potential diagnostic delays for serious conditions^71,72; use of telemedicine technologies to improve accessibility and coordination⁷³;application of mobile health and wearable technologies to facilitate data-gathering and care delivery^74,75; and use of computerized decision-support tools, including applications to interpret electrocardiograms, imaging studies, and other diagnostic tests.⁷⁶

Use of precision medicine, powered by new artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is becoming more widespread. Algorithms powered by AI can augment and sometimes even outperform clinician decision-making in areas such as oncology, radiology, and primary care.⁷⁷ Creation of large biobanks like the All of Us research program can be used to study thousands of environmental and genetic risk factors and health conditions simultaneously, and help identify specific treatments that work best for people of different backgrounds.⁷⁸ Active research in these areas holds great promise in terms of how and when we diagnose diseases and make appropriate preventative and treatment decisions. Significant scientific, ethical, and regulatory challenges will need to be overcome before these technologies can address some of the most complex problems in health care.⁷⁹

Finally, diagnostic performance is affected by the external environment, including the functioning of the medical liability system. Diagnostic errors that lead to patient harm are a leading cause of malpractice claims.⁸⁰ Developing a legal environment, in collaboration with patient advocacy groups and health care organizations, that promotes and facilitates timely disclosure of diagnostic errors could decrease the incentive to hide errors, advance care processes, and improve outcomes.^81,82

Conclusion

The burden of diagnostic errors in hospitalized patients is unacceptably high and remains an underemphasized cause of preventable morbidity and mortality. Diagnostic errors often result from a breakdown in multiple interdependent processes that involve patient-, provider-, and system-level factors. Significant challenges remain in defining and identifying diagnostic errors as well as underlying process-failure points. The most effective interventions to reduce diagnostic errors will require greater patient participation in the diagnostic process and a mix of evidence-based interventions that promote individual-provider excellence as well as system-level changes. Further research and collaboration among various stakeholders should help improve diagnostic safety for hospitalized patients.

Corresponding author: Abhishek Goyal, MD, MPH; [email protected]

Disclosures: Dr. Dalal disclosed receiving income ≥ $250 from MayaMD.

Each year, 40,000 to 98,000 deaths occur due to medical errors.¹ The Harvard Medical Practice Study (HMPS), published in 1991, found that 3.7% of hospitalized patients were harmed by adverse events and 1% were harmed by adverse events due to negligence.² The latest HMPS showed that, despite significant improvements in patient safety over the past 3 decades, patient safety challenges persist. This study found that inpatient care leads to harm in nearly a quarter of patients, and that 1 in 4 of these adverse events are preventable.³

Since the first HMPS study was published, efforts to improve patient safety have focused on identifying causes of medical error and the design and implementation of interventions to mitigate errors. Factors contributing to medical errors have been well documented: the complexity of care delivery from inpatient to outpatient settings, with transitions of care and extensive use of medications; multiple comorbidities; and the fragmentation of care across multiple systems and specialties. Although most errors are related to process or system failure, accountability of each practitioner and clinician is essential to promoting a culture of safety. Many medical errors are preventable through multifaceted approaches employed throughout the phases of the care,⁴ with medication errors, both prescribing and administration, and diagnostic and treatment errors encompassing most risk prevention areas. Broadly, safety efforts should emphasize building a culture of safety where all safety events are reported, including near-miss events.

Two articles in this issue of JCOM address key elements of patient safety: building a safety culture and diagnostic error. Merchant et al⁵ report on an initiative designed to promote a safety culture by recognizing and rewarding staff who identify and report near misses. The tiered awards program they designed led to significantly increased staff participation in the safety awards nomination process and was associated with increased reporting of actual and close-call events and greater attendance at monthly safety forums. Goyal et al,⁶ noting that diagnostic error rates in hospitalized patients remain unacceptably high, provide a concise update on diagnostic error among inpatients, focusing on issues related to defining and measuring diagnostic errors and current strategies to improve diagnostic safety in hospitalized patients. In a third article, Sathi et al report on efforts to teach quality improvement (QI) methods to internal medicine trainees; their project increased residents’ knowledge of their patient panels and comfort with QI approaches and led to improved patient outcomes.

Major progress has been made to improve health care safety since the first HMPS was published. However, the latest HMPS shows that patient safety efforts must continue, given the persistent risk for patient harm in the current health care delivery system. Safety, along with clear accountability for identifying, reporting, and addressing errors, should be a top priority for health care systems throughout the preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic phases of care.

Corresponding author: Ebrahim Barkoudah, MD, MPH; [email protected]

Each year, 40,000 to 98,000 deaths occur due to medical errors.¹ The Harvard Medical Practice Study (HMPS), published in 1991, found that 3.7% of hospitalized patients were harmed by adverse events and 1% were harmed by adverse events due to negligence.² The latest HMPS showed that, despite significant improvements in patient safety over the past 3 decades, patient safety challenges persist. This study found that inpatient care leads to harm in nearly a quarter of patients, and that 1 in 4 of these adverse events are preventable.³

Since the first HMPS study was published, efforts to improve patient safety have focused on identifying causes of medical error and the design and implementation of interventions to mitigate errors. Factors contributing to medical errors have been well documented: the complexity of care delivery from inpatient to outpatient settings, with transitions of care and extensive use of medications; multiple comorbidities; and the fragmentation of care across multiple systems and specialties. Although most errors are related to process or system failure, accountability of each practitioner and clinician is essential to promoting a culture of safety. Many medical errors are preventable through multifaceted approaches employed throughout the phases of the care,⁴ with medication errors, both prescribing and administration, and diagnostic and treatment errors encompassing most risk prevention areas. Broadly, safety efforts should emphasize building a culture of safety where all safety events are reported, including near-miss events.

Two articles in this issue of JCOM address key elements of patient safety: building a safety culture and diagnostic error. Merchant et al⁵ report on an initiative designed to promote a safety culture by recognizing and rewarding staff who identify and report near misses. The tiered awards program they designed led to significantly increased staff participation in the safety awards nomination process and was associated with increased reporting of actual and close-call events and greater attendance at monthly safety forums. Goyal et al,⁶ noting that diagnostic error rates in hospitalized patients remain unacceptably high, provide a concise update on diagnostic error among inpatients, focusing on issues related to defining and measuring diagnostic errors and current strategies to improve diagnostic safety in hospitalized patients. In a third article, Sathi et al report on efforts to teach quality improvement (QI) methods to internal medicine trainees; their project increased residents’ knowledge of their patient panels and comfort with QI approaches and led to improved patient outcomes.

Major progress has been made to improve health care safety since the first HMPS was published. However, the latest HMPS shows that patient safety efforts must continue, given the persistent risk for patient harm in the current health care delivery system. Safety, along with clear accountability for identifying, reporting, and addressing errors, should be a top priority for health care systems throughout the preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic phases of care.

Corresponding author: Ebrahim Barkoudah, MD, MPH; [email protected]

Each year, 40,000 to 98,000 deaths occur due to medical errors.¹ The Harvard Medical Practice Study (HMPS), published in 1991, found that 3.7% of hospitalized patients were harmed by adverse events and 1% were harmed by adverse events due to negligence.² The latest HMPS showed that, despite significant improvements in patient safety over the past 3 decades, patient safety challenges persist. This study found that inpatient care leads to harm in nearly a quarter of patients, and that 1 in 4 of these adverse events are preventable.³

Since the first HMPS study was published, efforts to improve patient safety have focused on identifying causes of medical error and the design and implementation of interventions to mitigate errors. Factors contributing to medical errors have been well documented: the complexity of care delivery from inpatient to outpatient settings, with transitions of care and extensive use of medications; multiple comorbidities; and the fragmentation of care across multiple systems and specialties. Although most errors are related to process or system failure, accountability of each practitioner and clinician is essential to promoting a culture of safety. Many medical errors are preventable through multifaceted approaches employed throughout the phases of the care,⁴ with medication errors, both prescribing and administration, and diagnostic and treatment errors encompassing most risk prevention areas. Broadly, safety efforts should emphasize building a culture of safety where all safety events are reported, including near-miss events.

Two articles in this issue of JCOM address key elements of patient safety: building a safety culture and diagnostic error. Merchant et al⁵ report on an initiative designed to promote a safety culture by recognizing and rewarding staff who identify and report near misses. The tiered awards program they designed led to significantly increased staff participation in the safety awards nomination process and was associated with increased reporting of actual and close-call events and greater attendance at monthly safety forums. Goyal et al,⁶ noting that diagnostic error rates in hospitalized patients remain unacceptably high, provide a concise update on diagnostic error among inpatients, focusing on issues related to defining and measuring diagnostic errors and current strategies to improve diagnostic safety in hospitalized patients. In a third article, Sathi et al report on efforts to teach quality improvement (QI) methods to internal medicine trainees; their project increased residents’ knowledge of their patient panels and comfort with QI approaches and led to improved patient outcomes.

Major progress has been made to improve health care safety since the first HMPS was published. However, the latest HMPS shows that patient safety efforts must continue, given the persistent risk for patient harm in the current health care delivery system. Safety, along with clear accountability for identifying, reporting, and addressing errors, should be a top priority for health care systems throughout the preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic phases of care.

Corresponding author: Ebrahim Barkoudah, MD, MPH; [email protected]

From the Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

Clinical inertia is defined as the failure of clinicians to initiate or escalate guideline-directed medical therapy to achieve treatment goals for well-defined clinical conditions.^1,2 Evidence-based guidelines recommend optimal disease management with readily available medical therapies throughout the phases of clinical care. Unfortunately, the care provided to individual patients undergoes multiple modifications throughout the disease course, resulting in divergent pathways, significant deviations from treatment guidelines, and failure of “safeguard” checkpoints to reinstate, initiate, optimize, or stop treatments. Clinical inertia generally describes rigidity or resistance to change around implementing evidence-based guidelines. Furthermore, this term describes treatment behavior on the part of an individual clinician, not organizational inertia, which generally encompasses both internal (immediate clinical practice settings) and external factors (national and international guidelines and recommendations), eventually leading to resistance to optimizing disease treatment and therapeutic regimens. Individual clinicians’ clinical inertia in the form of resistance to guideline implementation and evidence-based principles can be one factor that drives organizational inertia. In turn, such individual behavior can be dictated by personal beliefs, knowledge, interpretation, skills, management principles, and biases. The terms therapeutic inertia or clinical inertia should not be confused with nonadherence from the patient’s standpoint when the clinician follows the best practice guidelines.³

Clinical inertia has been described in several clinical domains, including diabetes,^4,5 hypertension,^6,7 heart failure,⁸ depression,⁹ pulmonary medicine,¹⁰ and complex disease management.¹¹ Clinicians can set suboptimal treatment goals due to specific beliefs and attitudes around optimal therapeutic goals. For example, when treating a patient with a chronic disease that is presently stable, a clinician could elect to initiate suboptimal treatment, as escalation of treatment might not be the priority in stable disease; they also may have concerns about overtreatment. Other factors that can contribute to clinical inertia (ie, undertreatment in the presence of indications for treatment) include those related to the patient, the clinical setting, and the organization, along with the importance of individualizing therapies in specific patients. Organizational inertia is the initial global resistance by the system to implementation, which can slow the dissemination and adaptation of best practices but eventually declines over time. Individual clinical inertia, on the other hand, will likely persist after the system-level rollout of guideline-based approaches.

The trajectory of dissemination, implementation, and adaptation of innovations and best practices is illustrated in the Figure. When the guidelines and medical societies endorse the adaptation of innovations or practice change after the benefits of such innovations/change have been established by the regulatory bodies, uptake can be hindered by both organizational and clinical inertia. Overcoming inertia to system-level changes requires addressing individual clinicians, along with practice and organizational factors, in order to ensure systematic adaptations. From the clinicians’ view, training and cognitive interventions to improve the adaptation and coping skills can improve understanding of treatment options through standardized educational and behavioral modification tools, direct and indirect feedback around performance, and decision support through a continuous improvement approach on both individual and system levels.

Addressing inertia in clinical practice requires a deep understanding of the individual and organizational elements that foster resistance to adapting best practice models. Research that explores tools and approaches to overcome inertia in managing complex diseases is a key step in advancing clinical innovation and disseminating best practices.

Corresponding author: Ebrahim Barkoudah, MD, MPH; [email protected]

Disclosures: None reported.

From the Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

Clinical inertia is defined as the failure of clinicians to initiate or escalate guideline-directed medical therapy to achieve treatment goals for well-defined clinical conditions.^1,2 Evidence-based guidelines recommend optimal disease management with readily available medical therapies throughout the phases of clinical care. Unfortunately, the care provided to individual patients undergoes multiple modifications throughout the disease course, resulting in divergent pathways, significant deviations from treatment guidelines, and failure of “safeguard” checkpoints to reinstate, initiate, optimize, or stop treatments. Clinical inertia generally describes rigidity or resistance to change around implementing evidence-based guidelines. Furthermore, this term describes treatment behavior on the part of an individual clinician, not organizational inertia, which generally encompasses both internal (immediate clinical practice settings) and external factors (national and international guidelines and recommendations), eventually leading to resistance to optimizing disease treatment and therapeutic regimens. Individual clinicians’ clinical inertia in the form of resistance to guideline implementation and evidence-based principles can be one factor that drives organizational inertia. In turn, such individual behavior can be dictated by personal beliefs, knowledge, interpretation, skills, management principles, and biases. The terms therapeutic inertia or clinical inertia should not be confused with nonadherence from the patient’s standpoint when the clinician follows the best practice guidelines.³

Clinical inertia has been described in several clinical domains, including diabetes,^4,5 hypertension,^6,7 heart failure,⁸ depression,⁹ pulmonary medicine,¹⁰ and complex disease management.¹¹ Clinicians can set suboptimal treatment goals due to specific beliefs and attitudes around optimal therapeutic goals. For example, when treating a patient with a chronic disease that is presently stable, a clinician could elect to initiate suboptimal treatment, as escalation of treatment might not be the priority in stable disease; they also may have concerns about overtreatment. Other factors that can contribute to clinical inertia (ie, undertreatment in the presence of indications for treatment) include those related to the patient, the clinical setting, and the organization, along with the importance of individualizing therapies in specific patients. Organizational inertia is the initial global resistance by the system to implementation, which can slow the dissemination and adaptation of best practices but eventually declines over time. Individual clinical inertia, on the other hand, will likely persist after the system-level rollout of guideline-based approaches.

The trajectory of dissemination, implementation, and adaptation of innovations and best practices is illustrated in the Figure. When the guidelines and medical societies endorse the adaptation of innovations or practice change after the benefits of such innovations/change have been established by the regulatory bodies, uptake can be hindered by both organizational and clinical inertia. Overcoming inertia to system-level changes requires addressing individual clinicians, along with practice and organizational factors, in order to ensure systematic adaptations. From the clinicians’ view, training and cognitive interventions to improve the adaptation and coping skills can improve understanding of treatment options through standardized educational and behavioral modification tools, direct and indirect feedback around performance, and decision support through a continuous improvement approach on both individual and system levels.

Addressing inertia in clinical practice requires a deep understanding of the individual and organizational elements that foster resistance to adapting best practice models. Research that explores tools and approaches to overcome inertia in managing complex diseases is a key step in advancing clinical innovation and disseminating best practices.

Corresponding author: Ebrahim Barkoudah, MD, MPH; [email protected]

Disclosures: None reported.

From the Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

Clinical inertia is defined as the failure of clinicians to initiate or escalate guideline-directed medical therapy to achieve treatment goals for well-defined clinical conditions.^1,2 Evidence-based guidelines recommend optimal disease management with readily available medical therapies throughout the phases of clinical care. Unfortunately, the care provided to individual patients undergoes multiple modifications throughout the disease course, resulting in divergent pathways, significant deviations from treatment guidelines, and failure of “safeguard” checkpoints to reinstate, initiate, optimize, or stop treatments. Clinical inertia generally describes rigidity or resistance to change around implementing evidence-based guidelines. Furthermore, this term describes treatment behavior on the part of an individual clinician, not organizational inertia, which generally encompasses both internal (immediate clinical practice settings) and external factors (national and international guidelines and recommendations), eventually leading to resistance to optimizing disease treatment and therapeutic regimens. Individual clinicians’ clinical inertia in the form of resistance to guideline implementation and evidence-based principles can be one factor that drives organizational inertia. In turn, such individual behavior can be dictated by personal beliefs, knowledge, interpretation, skills, management principles, and biases. The terms therapeutic inertia or clinical inertia should not be confused with nonadherence from the patient’s standpoint when the clinician follows the best practice guidelines.³

Clinical inertia has been described in several clinical domains, including diabetes,^4,5 hypertension,^6,7 heart failure,⁸ depression,⁹ pulmonary medicine,¹⁰ and complex disease management.¹¹ Clinicians can set suboptimal treatment goals due to specific beliefs and attitudes around optimal therapeutic goals. For example, when treating a patient with a chronic disease that is presently stable, a clinician could elect to initiate suboptimal treatment, as escalation of treatment might not be the priority in stable disease; they also may have concerns about overtreatment. Other factors that can contribute to clinical inertia (ie, undertreatment in the presence of indications for treatment) include those related to the patient, the clinical setting, and the organization, along with the importance of individualizing therapies in specific patients. Organizational inertia is the initial global resistance by the system to implementation, which can slow the dissemination and adaptation of best practices but eventually declines over time. Individual clinical inertia, on the other hand, will likely persist after the system-level rollout of guideline-based approaches.

The trajectory of dissemination, implementation, and adaptation of innovations and best practices is illustrated in the Figure. When the guidelines and medical societies endorse the adaptation of innovations or practice change after the benefits of such innovations/change have been established by the regulatory bodies, uptake can be hindered by both organizational and clinical inertia. Overcoming inertia to system-level changes requires addressing individual clinicians, along with practice and organizational factors, in order to ensure systematic adaptations. From the clinicians’ view, training and cognitive interventions to improve the adaptation and coping skills can improve understanding of treatment options through standardized educational and behavioral modification tools, direct and indirect feedback around performance, and decision support through a continuous improvement approach on both individual and system levels.

Addressing inertia in clinical practice requires a deep understanding of the individual and organizational elements that foster resistance to adapting best practice models. Research that explores tools and approaches to overcome inertia in managing complex diseases is a key step in advancing clinical innovation and disseminating best practices.

Corresponding author: Ebrahim Barkoudah, MD, MPH; [email protected]

Disclosures: None reported.

Study 1 Overview (Bretthauer et al) 

Objective: To evaluate the impact of screening colonoscopy on colon cancer–related death. 

Design: Randomized trial conducted in 4 European countries.

Setting and participants: Presumptively healthy men and women between the ages of 55 and 64 years were selected from population registries in Poland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands between 2009 and 2014. Eligible participants had not previously undergone screening. Patients with a diagnosis of colon cancer before trial entry were excluded.

Intervention: Participants were randomly assigned in a 1:2 ratio to undergo colonoscopy screening by invitation or to no invitation and no screening. Participants were randomized using a computer-generated allocation algorithm. Patients were stratified by age, sex, and municipality.

Main outcome measures: The primary endpoint of the study was risk of colorectal cancer and related death after a median follow-up of 10 to 15 years. The main secondary endpoint was death from any cause.

Main results: The study reported follow-up data from 84,585 participants (89.1% of all participants originally included in the trial). The remaining participants were either excluded or data could not be included due to lack of follow-up data from the usual-care group. Men (50.1%) and women (49.9%) were equally represented. The median age at entry was 59 years. The median follow-up was 10 years. Characteristics were otherwise balanced. Good bowel preparation was reported in 91% of all participants. Cecal intubation was achieved in 96.8% of all participants. The percentage of patients who underwent screening was 42% for the group, but screening rates varied by country (33%-60%). Colorectal cancer was diagnosed at screening in 62 participants (0.5% of screening group). Adenomas were detected in 30.7% of participants; 15 patients had polypectomy-related major bleeding. There were no perforations.

The risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was 0.98% in the invited-to-screen group and 1.2% in the usual-care group (risk ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.7-0.93). The reported number needed to invite to prevent 1 case of colon cancer in a 10-year period was 455. The risk of colorectal cancer–related death at 10 years was 0.28% in the invited-to-screen group and 0.31% in the usual-care group (risk ratio, 0.9; 95% CI, 0.64-1.16). An adjusted per-protocol analysis was performed to account for the estimated effect of screening if all participants assigned to the screening group underwent screening. In this analysis, the risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was decreased from 1.22% to 0.84% (risk ratio, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.66-0.83).

Conclusion: Based on the results of this European randomized trial, the risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was lower among those who were invited to undergo screening.

Study 2 Overview (Forsberg et al) 

Objective: To investigate the effect of colorectal cancer screening with once-only colonoscopy or fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) on colorectal cancer mortality and incidence.

Design: Randomized controlled trial in Sweden utilizing a population registry. 

Setting and participants: Patients aged 60 years at the time of entry were identified from a population-based registry from the Swedish Tax Agency.

Intervention: Individuals were assigned by an independent statistician to once-only colonoscopy, 2 rounds of FIT 2 years apart, or a control group in which no intervention was performed. Patients were assigned in a 1:6 ratio for colonoscopy vs control and a 1:2 ratio for FIT vs control.

Main outcome measures: The primary endpoint of the trial was colorectal cancer incidence and mortality.

Main results: A total of 278,280 participants were included in the study from March 1, 2014, through December 31, 2020 (31,140 in the colonoscopy group, 60,300 in the FIT group, and 186,840 in the control group). Of those in the colonoscopy group, 35% underwent colonoscopy, and 55% of those in the FIT group participated in testing. Colorectal cancer was detected in 0.16% (49) of people in the colonoscopy group and 0.2% (121) of people in the FIT test group (relative risk, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.56-1.09). The advanced adenoma detection rate was 2.05% in the colonoscopy group and 1.61% in the FIT group (relative risk, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.15-1.41). There were 2 perforations noted in the colonoscopy group and 15 major bleeding events. More right-sided adenomas were detected in the colonoscopy group.

Conclusion: The results of the current study highlight similar detection rates in the colonoscopy and FIT group. Should further follow-up show a benefit in disease-specific mortality, such screening strategies could be translated into population-based screening programs.

Commentary 

The first colonoscopy screening recommendations were established in the mid 1990s in the United States, and over the subsequent 2 decades colonoscopy has been the recommended method and main modality for colorectal cancer screening in this country. The advantage of colonoscopy over other screening modalities (sigmoidoscopy and fecal-based testing) is that it can examine the entire large bowel and allow for removal of potential precancerous lesions. However, data to support colonoscopy as a screening modality for colorectal cancer are largely based on cohort studies.^1,2 These studies have reported a significant reduction in the incidence of colon cancer. Additionally, colorectal cancer mortality was notably lower in the screened populations. For example, one study among health professionals found a nearly 70% reduction in colorectal cancer mortality in those who underwent at least 1 screening colonoscopy.³

There has been a lack of randomized clinical data to validate the efficacy of colonoscopy screening for reducing colorectal cancer–related deaths. The current study by Bretthauer et al addresses an important need and enhances our understanding of the efficacy of colorectal cancer screening with colonoscopy. In this randomized trial involving more than 84,000 participants from Poland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, there was a noted 18% decrease in the risk of colorectal cancer over a 10-year period in the intention-to-screen population. The reduction in the risk of death from colorectal cancer was not statistically significant (risk ratio, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.64-1.16). These results are surprising and certainly raise the question as to whether previous studies overestimated the effectiveness of colonoscopy in reducing the risk of colorectal cancer–related deaths. There are several limitations to the Bretthauer et al study, however.

Perhaps the most important limitation is the fact that only 42% of participants in the invited-to-screen cohort underwent screening colonoscopy. Therefore, this raises the question of whether the efficacy noted is simply due to a lack of participation in the screening protocol. In the adjusted per-protocol analysis, colonoscopy was estimated to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer by 31% and the risk of colorectal cancer–related death by around 50%. These findings are more in line with prior published studies regarding the efficacy of colorectal cancer screening. The authors plan to repeat this analysis at 15 years, and it is possible that the risk of colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer–related death can be reduced on subsequent follow-up.

While the results of the Bretthauer et al trial are important, randomized trials that directly compare the effectiveness of different colorectal cancer screening strategies are lacking. The Forsberg et al trial, also an ongoing study, seeks to address this vitally important gap in our current data. The SCREESCO trial is a study that compares the efficacy of colonoscopy with FIT every 2 years or no screening. The currently reported data are preliminary but show a similarly low rate of colonoscopy screening in those invited to do so (35%). This is a similar limitation to that noted in the Bretthauer et al study. Furthermore, there is some question regarding colonoscopy quality in this study, which had a very low reported adenoma detection rate.

While the current studies are important and provide quality randomized data on the effect of colorectal cancer screening, there remain many unanswered questions. Should the results presented by Bretthauer et al represent the current real-world scenario, then colonoscopy screening may not be viewed as an effective screening tool compared to simpler, less-invasive modalities (ie, FIT). Further follow-up from the SCREESCO trial will help shed light on this question. However, there are concerns with this study, including a very low participation rate, which could greatly underestimate the effectiveness of screening. Additional analysis and longer follow-up will be vital to fully understand the benefits of screening colonoscopy. In the meantime, screening remains an important tool for early detection of colorectal cancer and remains a category A recommendation by the United States Preventive Services Task Force.⁴ 

Applications for Clinical Practice and System Implementation

Current guidelines continue to strongly recommend screening for colorectal cancer for persons between 45 and 75 years of age (category B recommendation for those aged 45 to 49 years per the United States Preventive Services Task Force). Stool-based tests and direct visualization tests are both endorsed as screening options. Further follow-up from the presented studies is needed to help shed light on the magnitude of benefit of these modalities.

Practice Points

• Current guidelines continue to strongly recommend screening for colon cancer in those aged 45 to 75 years.
• The optimal modality for screening and the impact of screening on cancer-related mortality requires longer- term follow-up from these ongoing studies.

–Daniel Isaac, DO, MS 

Study 1 Overview (Bretthauer et al) 

Objective: To evaluate the impact of screening colonoscopy on colon cancer–related death. 

Design: Randomized trial conducted in 4 European countries.

Setting and participants: Presumptively healthy men and women between the ages of 55 and 64 years were selected from population registries in Poland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands between 2009 and 2014. Eligible participants had not previously undergone screening. Patients with a diagnosis of colon cancer before trial entry were excluded.

Intervention: Participants were randomly assigned in a 1:2 ratio to undergo colonoscopy screening by invitation or to no invitation and no screening. Participants were randomized using a computer-generated allocation algorithm. Patients were stratified by age, sex, and municipality.

Main outcome measures: The primary endpoint of the study was risk of colorectal cancer and related death after a median follow-up of 10 to 15 years. The main secondary endpoint was death from any cause.

Main results: The study reported follow-up data from 84,585 participants (89.1% of all participants originally included in the trial). The remaining participants were either excluded or data could not be included due to lack of follow-up data from the usual-care group. Men (50.1%) and women (49.9%) were equally represented. The median age at entry was 59 years. The median follow-up was 10 years. Characteristics were otherwise balanced. Good bowel preparation was reported in 91% of all participants. Cecal intubation was achieved in 96.8% of all participants. The percentage of patients who underwent screening was 42% for the group, but screening rates varied by country (33%-60%). Colorectal cancer was diagnosed at screening in 62 participants (0.5% of screening group). Adenomas were detected in 30.7% of participants; 15 patients had polypectomy-related major bleeding. There were no perforations.

The risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was 0.98% in the invited-to-screen group and 1.2% in the usual-care group (risk ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.7-0.93). The reported number needed to invite to prevent 1 case of colon cancer in a 10-year period was 455. The risk of colorectal cancer–related death at 10 years was 0.28% in the invited-to-screen group and 0.31% in the usual-care group (risk ratio, 0.9; 95% CI, 0.64-1.16). An adjusted per-protocol analysis was performed to account for the estimated effect of screening if all participants assigned to the screening group underwent screening. In this analysis, the risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was decreased from 1.22% to 0.84% (risk ratio, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.66-0.83).

Conclusion: Based on the results of this European randomized trial, the risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was lower among those who were invited to undergo screening.

Study 2 Overview (Forsberg et al) 

Objective: To investigate the effect of colorectal cancer screening with once-only colonoscopy or fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) on colorectal cancer mortality and incidence.

Design: Randomized controlled trial in Sweden utilizing a population registry. 

Setting and participants: Patients aged 60 years at the time of entry were identified from a population-based registry from the Swedish Tax Agency.

Intervention: Individuals were assigned by an independent statistician to once-only colonoscopy, 2 rounds of FIT 2 years apart, or a control group in which no intervention was performed. Patients were assigned in a 1:6 ratio for colonoscopy vs control and a 1:2 ratio for FIT vs control.

Main outcome measures: The primary endpoint of the trial was colorectal cancer incidence and mortality.

Main results: A total of 278,280 participants were included in the study from March 1, 2014, through December 31, 2020 (31,140 in the colonoscopy group, 60,300 in the FIT group, and 186,840 in the control group). Of those in the colonoscopy group, 35% underwent colonoscopy, and 55% of those in the FIT group participated in testing. Colorectal cancer was detected in 0.16% (49) of people in the colonoscopy group and 0.2% (121) of people in the FIT test group (relative risk, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.56-1.09). The advanced adenoma detection rate was 2.05% in the colonoscopy group and 1.61% in the FIT group (relative risk, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.15-1.41). There were 2 perforations noted in the colonoscopy group and 15 major bleeding events. More right-sided adenomas were detected in the colonoscopy group.

Conclusion: The results of the current study highlight similar detection rates in the colonoscopy and FIT group. Should further follow-up show a benefit in disease-specific mortality, such screening strategies could be translated into population-based screening programs.

Commentary 

The first colonoscopy screening recommendations were established in the mid 1990s in the United States, and over the subsequent 2 decades colonoscopy has been the recommended method and main modality for colorectal cancer screening in this country. The advantage of colonoscopy over other screening modalities (sigmoidoscopy and fecal-based testing) is that it can examine the entire large bowel and allow for removal of potential precancerous lesions. However, data to support colonoscopy as a screening modality for colorectal cancer are largely based on cohort studies.^1,2 These studies have reported a significant reduction in the incidence of colon cancer. Additionally, colorectal cancer mortality was notably lower in the screened populations. For example, one study among health professionals found a nearly 70% reduction in colorectal cancer mortality in those who underwent at least 1 screening colonoscopy.³

There has been a lack of randomized clinical data to validate the efficacy of colonoscopy screening for reducing colorectal cancer–related deaths. The current study by Bretthauer et al addresses an important need and enhances our understanding of the efficacy of colorectal cancer screening with colonoscopy. In this randomized trial involving more than 84,000 participants from Poland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, there was a noted 18% decrease in the risk of colorectal cancer over a 10-year period in the intention-to-screen population. The reduction in the risk of death from colorectal cancer was not statistically significant (risk ratio, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.64-1.16). These results are surprising and certainly raise the question as to whether previous studies overestimated the effectiveness of colonoscopy in reducing the risk of colorectal cancer–related deaths. There are several limitations to the Bretthauer et al study, however.

Perhaps the most important limitation is the fact that only 42% of participants in the invited-to-screen cohort underwent screening colonoscopy. Therefore, this raises the question of whether the efficacy noted is simply due to a lack of participation in the screening protocol. In the adjusted per-protocol analysis, colonoscopy was estimated to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer by 31% and the risk of colorectal cancer–related death by around 50%. These findings are more in line with prior published studies regarding the efficacy of colorectal cancer screening. The authors plan to repeat this analysis at 15 years, and it is possible that the risk of colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer–related death can be reduced on subsequent follow-up.

While the results of the Bretthauer et al trial are important, randomized trials that directly compare the effectiveness of different colorectal cancer screening strategies are lacking. The Forsberg et al trial, also an ongoing study, seeks to address this vitally important gap in our current data. The SCREESCO trial is a study that compares the efficacy of colonoscopy with FIT every 2 years or no screening. The currently reported data are preliminary but show a similarly low rate of colonoscopy screening in those invited to do so (35%). This is a similar limitation to that noted in the Bretthauer et al study. Furthermore, there is some question regarding colonoscopy quality in this study, which had a very low reported adenoma detection rate.

While the current studies are important and provide quality randomized data on the effect of colorectal cancer screening, there remain many unanswered questions. Should the results presented by Bretthauer et al represent the current real-world scenario, then colonoscopy screening may not be viewed as an effective screening tool compared to simpler, less-invasive modalities (ie, FIT). Further follow-up from the SCREESCO trial will help shed light on this question. However, there are concerns with this study, including a very low participation rate, which could greatly underestimate the effectiveness of screening. Additional analysis and longer follow-up will be vital to fully understand the benefits of screening colonoscopy. In the meantime, screening remains an important tool for early detection of colorectal cancer and remains a category A recommendation by the United States Preventive Services Task Force.⁴ 

Applications for Clinical Practice and System Implementation

Current guidelines continue to strongly recommend screening for colorectal cancer for persons between 45 and 75 years of age (category B recommendation for those aged 45 to 49 years per the United States Preventive Services Task Force). Stool-based tests and direct visualization tests are both endorsed as screening options. Further follow-up from the presented studies is needed to help shed light on the magnitude of benefit of these modalities.

Practice Points

• Current guidelines continue to strongly recommend screening for colon cancer in those aged 45 to 75 years.
• The optimal modality for screening and the impact of screening on cancer-related mortality requires longer- term follow-up from these ongoing studies.

–Daniel Isaac, DO, MS 

Study 1 Overview (Bretthauer et al) 

Objective: To evaluate the impact of screening colonoscopy on colon cancer–related death. 

Design: Randomized trial conducted in 4 European countries.

Setting and participants: Presumptively healthy men and women between the ages of 55 and 64 years were selected from population registries in Poland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands between 2009 and 2014. Eligible participants had not previously undergone screening. Patients with a diagnosis of colon cancer before trial entry were excluded.

Intervention: Participants were randomly assigned in a 1:2 ratio to undergo colonoscopy screening by invitation or to no invitation and no screening. Participants were randomized using a computer-generated allocation algorithm. Patients were stratified by age, sex, and municipality.

Main outcome measures: The primary endpoint of the study was risk of colorectal cancer and related death after a median follow-up of 10 to 15 years. The main secondary endpoint was death from any cause.

Main results: The study reported follow-up data from 84,585 participants (89.1% of all participants originally included in the trial). The remaining participants were either excluded or data could not be included due to lack of follow-up data from the usual-care group. Men (50.1%) and women (49.9%) were equally represented. The median age at entry was 59 years. The median follow-up was 10 years. Characteristics were otherwise balanced. Good bowel preparation was reported in 91% of all participants. Cecal intubation was achieved in 96.8% of all participants. The percentage of patients who underwent screening was 42% for the group, but screening rates varied by country (33%-60%). Colorectal cancer was diagnosed at screening in 62 participants (0.5% of screening group). Adenomas were detected in 30.7% of participants; 15 patients had polypectomy-related major bleeding. There were no perforations.

The risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was 0.98% in the invited-to-screen group and 1.2% in the usual-care group (risk ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.7-0.93). The reported number needed to invite to prevent 1 case of colon cancer in a 10-year period was 455. The risk of colorectal cancer–related death at 10 years was 0.28% in the invited-to-screen group and 0.31% in the usual-care group (risk ratio, 0.9; 95% CI, 0.64-1.16). An adjusted per-protocol analysis was performed to account for the estimated effect of screening if all participants assigned to the screening group underwent screening. In this analysis, the risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was decreased from 1.22% to 0.84% (risk ratio, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.66-0.83).

Conclusion: Based on the results of this European randomized trial, the risk of colorectal cancer at 10 years was lower among those who were invited to undergo screening.

Study 2 Overview (Forsberg et al) 

Objective: To investigate the effect of colorectal cancer screening with once-only colonoscopy or fecal immunochemical testing (FIT) on colorectal cancer mortality and incidence.

Design: Randomized controlled trial in Sweden utilizing a population registry. 

Setting and participants: Patients aged 60 years at the time of entry were identified from a population-based registry from the Swedish Tax Agency.

Intervention: Individuals were assigned by an independent statistician to once-only colonoscopy, 2 rounds of FIT 2 years apart, or a control group in which no intervention was performed. Patients were assigned in a 1:6 ratio for colonoscopy vs control and a 1:2 ratio for FIT vs control.

Main outcome measures: The primary endpoint of the trial was colorectal cancer incidence and mortality.

Main results: A total of 278,280 participants were included in the study from March 1, 2014, through December 31, 2020 (31,140 in the colonoscopy group, 60,300 in the FIT group, and 186,840 in the control group). Of those in the colonoscopy group, 35% underwent colonoscopy, and 55% of those in the FIT group participated in testing. Colorectal cancer was detected in 0.16% (49) of people in the colonoscopy group and 0.2% (121) of people in the FIT test group (relative risk, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.56-1.09). The advanced adenoma detection rate was 2.05% in the colonoscopy group and 1.61% in the FIT group (relative risk, 1.27; 95% CI, 1.15-1.41). There were 2 perforations noted in the colonoscopy group and 15 major bleeding events. More right-sided adenomas were detected in the colonoscopy group.

Conclusion: The results of the current study highlight similar detection rates in the colonoscopy and FIT group. Should further follow-up show a benefit in disease-specific mortality, such screening strategies could be translated into population-based screening programs.

Commentary 

The first colonoscopy screening recommendations were established in the mid 1990s in the United States, and over the subsequent 2 decades colonoscopy has been the recommended method and main modality for colorectal cancer screening in this country. The advantage of colonoscopy over other screening modalities (sigmoidoscopy and fecal-based testing) is that it can examine the entire large bowel and allow for removal of potential precancerous lesions. However, data to support colonoscopy as a screening modality for colorectal cancer are largely based on cohort studies.^1,2 These studies have reported a significant reduction in the incidence of colon cancer. Additionally, colorectal cancer mortality was notably lower in the screened populations. For example, one study among health professionals found a nearly 70% reduction in colorectal cancer mortality in those who underwent at least 1 screening colonoscopy.³

There has been a lack of randomized clinical data to validate the efficacy of colonoscopy screening for reducing colorectal cancer–related deaths. The current study by Bretthauer et al addresses an important need and enhances our understanding of the efficacy of colorectal cancer screening with colonoscopy. In this randomized trial involving more than 84,000 participants from Poland, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands, there was a noted 18% decrease in the risk of colorectal cancer over a 10-year period in the intention-to-screen population. The reduction in the risk of death from colorectal cancer was not statistically significant (risk ratio, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.64-1.16). These results are surprising and certainly raise the question as to whether previous studies overestimated the effectiveness of colonoscopy in reducing the risk of colorectal cancer–related deaths. There are several limitations to the Bretthauer et al study, however.

Perhaps the most important limitation is the fact that only 42% of participants in the invited-to-screen cohort underwent screening colonoscopy. Therefore, this raises the question of whether the efficacy noted is simply due to a lack of participation in the screening protocol. In the adjusted per-protocol analysis, colonoscopy was estimated to reduce the risk of colorectal cancer by 31% and the risk of colorectal cancer–related death by around 50%. These findings are more in line with prior published studies regarding the efficacy of colorectal cancer screening. The authors plan to repeat this analysis at 15 years, and it is possible that the risk of colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer–related death can be reduced on subsequent follow-up.

While the results of the Bretthauer et al trial are important, randomized trials that directly compare the effectiveness of different colorectal cancer screening strategies are lacking. The Forsberg et al trial, also an ongoing study, seeks to address this vitally important gap in our current data. The SCREESCO trial is a study that compares the efficacy of colonoscopy with FIT every 2 years or no screening. The currently reported data are preliminary but show a similarly low rate of colonoscopy screening in those invited to do so (35%). This is a similar limitation to that noted in the Bretthauer et al study. Furthermore, there is some question regarding colonoscopy quality in this study, which had a very low reported adenoma detection rate.

While the current studies are important and provide quality randomized data on the effect of colorectal cancer screening, there remain many unanswered questions. Should the results presented by Bretthauer et al represent the current real-world scenario, then colonoscopy screening may not be viewed as an effective screening tool compared to simpler, less-invasive modalities (ie, FIT). Further follow-up from the SCREESCO trial will help shed light on this question. However, there are concerns with this study, including a very low participation rate, which could greatly underestimate the effectiveness of screening. Additional analysis and longer follow-up will be vital to fully understand the benefits of screening colonoscopy. In the meantime, screening remains an important tool for early detection of colorectal cancer and remains a category A recommendation by the United States Preventive Services Task Force.⁴ 

Applications for Clinical Practice and System Implementation

Current guidelines continue to strongly recommend screening for colorectal cancer for persons between 45 and 75 years of age (category B recommendation for those aged 45 to 49 years per the United States Preventive Services Task Force). Stool-based tests and direct visualization tests are both endorsed as screening options. Further follow-up from the presented studies is needed to help shed light on the magnitude of benefit of these modalities.

Practice Points

• Current guidelines continue to strongly recommend screening for colon cancer in those aged 45 to 75 years.
• The optimal modality for screening and the impact of screening on cancer-related mortality requires longer- term follow-up from these ongoing studies.

–Daniel Isaac, DO, MS 

This Veterans Day we honor the passing of the largest expansion of veterans benefits and services in history. On August 10, 2022, President Biden signed the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act. This act was named for a combat medic who died of a rare form of lung cancer believed to be the result of a toxic military exposure. His widow was present during the President's State of the Union address that urged Congress to pass the legislation.² 

Like all other congressional bills and government regulations, the PACT Act is complex in its details and still a work in progress. Simply put, the PACT Act expands and/or extends enrollment for a group of previously ineligible veterans. Eligibility will no longer require that veterans demonstrate a service-connected disability due to toxic exposure, including those from burn pits. This has long been a barrier for many veterans seeking benefits and not just related to toxic exposures. Logistical barriers and documentary losses have prevented many service members from establishing a clean chain of evidence for the injuries or illnesses they sustained while in uniform.
 
The new process is a massive step forward by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish high standards of procedural justice for settling beneficiary claims. The PACT Act removes the burden from the shoulders of the veteran and places it squarely on the VA to demonstrate that > 20 different medical conditions--primarily cancers and respiratory illnesses--are linked to toxic exposure. The VA must establish that exposure occurred to cohorts of service members in specific theaters and time frames. A veteran who served in that area and period and has one of the indexed illnesses is presumed to have been exposed in the line of duty.^3,4

As a result, the VA instituted a new screening process to determine that toxic military exposures (a) led to illness; and (b) both exposure and illness are connected to service. According to the VA, the new process is evidence based, transparent, and allows the VA to fast-track policy decisions related to exposures. The PACT Act includes a provision intended to promote sustained implementation and prevent the program from succumbing as so many new initiatives have to inadequate adoption. VA is required to deploy its considerable internal research capacity to collaborate with external partners in and outside government to study military members with toxic exposures.⁴ 

Congress had initially proposed that the provisions of the PACT ACT would take effect in 2026, providing time to ramp up the process. The White House and VA telescoped that time line so veterans can begin now to apply for benefits that they could foreseeably receive in 2023. However, a long-standing problem for the VA has been unfunded agency or congressional mandates. These have often end in undermining the legislative intention or policy purpose of the program undermining their legislative intention or policy purpose through staffing shortages, leading to lack of or delayed access. The PACT Act promises to eschew the infamous Phoenix problem by providing increased personnel, training infrastructure, and technology resources for both the Veterans Benefit Administration and the Veterans Health Administration. Ironically, many seasoned VA observers expect the PACT expansion will lead to even larger backlogs of claims as hundreds of newly eligible veterans are added to the extant rolls of those seeking benefits.⁵ 

An estimated 1 in 5 veterans may be entitled to PACT benefits. The PACT Act is the latest of a long uneven movement toward distributive justice for veteran benefits and services. It is fitting in the month of Veterans Day 2022 to trace that trajectory. Congress first passed veteran benefits legislation in 1917, focused on soldiers with disabilities. This resulted in a massive investment in building hospitals. Ironically, part of the impetus for VA health care was an earlier toxic military exposure. World War I service members suffered from the detrimental effects of mustard gas among other chemical byproducts. In 1924, VA benefits and services underwent a momentous opening to include individuals with non-service-connected disabilities. Four years later, the VA tent became even bigger, welcoming women, National Guard, and militia members to receive care under its auspices.⁶ 

The PACT Act is a fitting memorial for Veterans Day as an increasingly divided country presents a unified response to veterans and their survivors exposed to a variety of toxins across multiple wars. The PACT Act was hard won with veterans and their advocates having to fight years of political bickering, government abdication of accountability, and scientific sparring before this bipartisan legislation passed.⁷ It covers Vietnam War veterans with several conditions due to Agent Orange exposure; Gulf War and post-9/11 veterans with cancer and respiratory conditions; and the service members deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq afflicted with illnesses due to the smoke of burn pits and other toxins. 

As many areas of the country roll back LGBTQ+ rights to health care and social services, the VA has emerged as a leader in the movement for diversity and inclusion. VA Secretary McDonough provided a pathway to VA eligibility for other than honorably discharged veterans, including those LGBTQ+ persons discharged under Don't Ask, Don't Tell.⁸ Lest we take this new inclusivity for granted, we should never forget that this journey toward equity for the military and VA has been long, slow, and uneven. There are many difficult miles yet to travel if we are to achieve liberty and justice for veteran members of racial minorities, women, and other marginalized populations. Even the PACT Act does not cover all putative exposures to toxins.⁹ Yet it is a significant step closer to fulfilling the motto of the VA LGBTQ+ program: to serve all who served.¹⁰ 

This Veterans Day we honor the passing of the largest expansion of veterans benefits and services in history. On August 10, 2022, President Biden signed the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act. This act was named for a combat medic who died of a rare form of lung cancer believed to be the result of a toxic military exposure. His widow was present during the President's State of the Union address that urged Congress to pass the legislation.² 

Like all other congressional bills and government regulations, the PACT Act is complex in its details and still a work in progress. Simply put, the PACT Act expands and/or extends enrollment for a group of previously ineligible veterans. Eligibility will no longer require that veterans demonstrate a service-connected disability due to toxic exposure, including those from burn pits. This has long been a barrier for many veterans seeking benefits and not just related to toxic exposures. Logistical barriers and documentary losses have prevented many service members from establishing a clean chain of evidence for the injuries or illnesses they sustained while in uniform.
 
The new process is a massive step forward by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish high standards of procedural justice for settling beneficiary claims. The PACT Act removes the burden from the shoulders of the veteran and places it squarely on the VA to demonstrate that > 20 different medical conditions--primarily cancers and respiratory illnesses--are linked to toxic exposure. The VA must establish that exposure occurred to cohorts of service members in specific theaters and time frames. A veteran who served in that area and period and has one of the indexed illnesses is presumed to have been exposed in the line of duty.^3,4

As a result, the VA instituted a new screening process to determine that toxic military exposures (a) led to illness; and (b) both exposure and illness are connected to service. According to the VA, the new process is evidence based, transparent, and allows the VA to fast-track policy decisions related to exposures. The PACT Act includes a provision intended to promote sustained implementation and prevent the program from succumbing as so many new initiatives have to inadequate adoption. VA is required to deploy its considerable internal research capacity to collaborate with external partners in and outside government to study military members with toxic exposures.⁴ 

Congress had initially proposed that the provisions of the PACT ACT would take effect in 2026, providing time to ramp up the process. The White House and VA telescoped that time line so veterans can begin now to apply for benefits that they could foreseeably receive in 2023. However, a long-standing problem for the VA has been unfunded agency or congressional mandates. These have often end in undermining the legislative intention or policy purpose of the program undermining their legislative intention or policy purpose through staffing shortages, leading to lack of or delayed access. The PACT Act promises to eschew the infamous Phoenix problem by providing increased personnel, training infrastructure, and technology resources for both the Veterans Benefit Administration and the Veterans Health Administration. Ironically, many seasoned VA observers expect the PACT expansion will lead to even larger backlogs of claims as hundreds of newly eligible veterans are added to the extant rolls of those seeking benefits.⁵ 

An estimated 1 in 5 veterans may be entitled to PACT benefits. The PACT Act is the latest of a long uneven movement toward distributive justice for veteran benefits and services. It is fitting in the month of Veterans Day 2022 to trace that trajectory. Congress first passed veteran benefits legislation in 1917, focused on soldiers with disabilities. This resulted in a massive investment in building hospitals. Ironically, part of the impetus for VA health care was an earlier toxic military exposure. World War I service members suffered from the detrimental effects of mustard gas among other chemical byproducts. In 1924, VA benefits and services underwent a momentous opening to include individuals with non-service-connected disabilities. Four years later, the VA tent became even bigger, welcoming women, National Guard, and militia members to receive care under its auspices.⁶ 

The PACT Act is a fitting memorial for Veterans Day as an increasingly divided country presents a unified response to veterans and their survivors exposed to a variety of toxins across multiple wars. The PACT Act was hard won with veterans and their advocates having to fight years of political bickering, government abdication of accountability, and scientific sparring before this bipartisan legislation passed.⁷ It covers Vietnam War veterans with several conditions due to Agent Orange exposure; Gulf War and post-9/11 veterans with cancer and respiratory conditions; and the service members deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq afflicted with illnesses due to the smoke of burn pits and other toxins. 

As many areas of the country roll back LGBTQ+ rights to health care and social services, the VA has emerged as a leader in the movement for diversity and inclusion. VA Secretary McDonough provided a pathway to VA eligibility for other than honorably discharged veterans, including those LGBTQ+ persons discharged under Don't Ask, Don't Tell.⁸ Lest we take this new inclusivity for granted, we should never forget that this journey toward equity for the military and VA has been long, slow, and uneven. There are many difficult miles yet to travel if we are to achieve liberty and justice for veteran members of racial minorities, women, and other marginalized populations. Even the PACT Act does not cover all putative exposures to toxins.⁹ Yet it is a significant step closer to fulfilling the motto of the VA LGBTQ+ program: to serve all who served.¹⁰ 

This Veterans Day we honor the passing of the largest expansion of veterans benefits and services in history. On August 10, 2022, President Biden signed the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act. This act was named for a combat medic who died of a rare form of lung cancer believed to be the result of a toxic military exposure. His widow was present during the President's State of the Union address that urged Congress to pass the legislation.² 

Like all other congressional bills and government regulations, the PACT Act is complex in its details and still a work in progress. Simply put, the PACT Act expands and/or extends enrollment for a group of previously ineligible veterans. Eligibility will no longer require that veterans demonstrate a service-connected disability due to toxic exposure, including those from burn pits. This has long been a barrier for many veterans seeking benefits and not just related to toxic exposures. Logistical barriers and documentary losses have prevented many service members from establishing a clean chain of evidence for the injuries or illnesses they sustained while in uniform.
 
The new process is a massive step forward by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish high standards of procedural justice for settling beneficiary claims. The PACT Act removes the burden from the shoulders of the veteran and places it squarely on the VA to demonstrate that > 20 different medical conditions--primarily cancers and respiratory illnesses--are linked to toxic exposure. The VA must establish that exposure occurred to cohorts of service members in specific theaters and time frames. A veteran who served in that area and period and has one of the indexed illnesses is presumed to have been exposed in the line of duty.^3,4

As a result, the VA instituted a new screening process to determine that toxic military exposures (a) led to illness; and (b) both exposure and illness are connected to service. According to the VA, the new process is evidence based, transparent, and allows the VA to fast-track policy decisions related to exposures. The PACT Act includes a provision intended to promote sustained implementation and prevent the program from succumbing as so many new initiatives have to inadequate adoption. VA is required to deploy its considerable internal research capacity to collaborate with external partners in and outside government to study military members with toxic exposures.⁴ 

Congress had initially proposed that the provisions of the PACT ACT would take effect in 2026, providing time to ramp up the process. The White House and VA telescoped that time line so veterans can begin now to apply for benefits that they could foreseeably receive in 2023. However, a long-standing problem for the VA has been unfunded agency or congressional mandates. These have often end in undermining the legislative intention or policy purpose of the program undermining their legislative intention or policy purpose through staffing shortages, leading to lack of or delayed access. The PACT Act promises to eschew the infamous Phoenix problem by providing increased personnel, training infrastructure, and technology resources for both the Veterans Benefit Administration and the Veterans Health Administration. Ironically, many seasoned VA observers expect the PACT expansion will lead to even larger backlogs of claims as hundreds of newly eligible veterans are added to the extant rolls of those seeking benefits.⁵ 

An estimated 1 in 5 veterans may be entitled to PACT benefits. The PACT Act is the latest of a long uneven movement toward distributive justice for veteran benefits and services. It is fitting in the month of Veterans Day 2022 to trace that trajectory. Congress first passed veteran benefits legislation in 1917, focused on soldiers with disabilities. This resulted in a massive investment in building hospitals. Ironically, part of the impetus for VA health care was an earlier toxic military exposure. World War I service members suffered from the detrimental effects of mustard gas among other chemical byproducts. In 1924, VA benefits and services underwent a momentous opening to include individuals with non-service-connected disabilities. Four years later, the VA tent became even bigger, welcoming women, National Guard, and militia members to receive care under its auspices.⁶ 

The PACT Act is a fitting memorial for Veterans Day as an increasingly divided country presents a unified response to veterans and their survivors exposed to a variety of toxins across multiple wars. The PACT Act was hard won with veterans and their advocates having to fight years of political bickering, government abdication of accountability, and scientific sparring before this bipartisan legislation passed.⁷ It covers Vietnam War veterans with several conditions due to Agent Orange exposure; Gulf War and post-9/11 veterans with cancer and respiratory conditions; and the service members deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq afflicted with illnesses due to the smoke of burn pits and other toxins. 

As many areas of the country roll back LGBTQ+ rights to health care and social services, the VA has emerged as a leader in the movement for diversity and inclusion. VA Secretary McDonough provided a pathway to VA eligibility for other than honorably discharged veterans, including those LGBTQ+ persons discharged under Don't Ask, Don't Tell.⁸ Lest we take this new inclusivity for granted, we should never forget that this journey toward equity for the military and VA has been long, slow, and uneven. There are many difficult miles yet to travel if we are to achieve liberty and justice for veteran members of racial minorities, women, and other marginalized populations. Even the PACT Act does not cover all putative exposures to toxins.⁹ Yet it is a significant step closer to fulfilling the motto of the VA LGBTQ+ program: to serve all who served.¹⁰ 

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, providing care for more than 9 million veterans.¹ With veterans experiencing mental health conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorders, and other serious mental illnesses (SMI) at higher rates compared with the general population, the VA plays an important role in the provision of mental health services.^2-5 Since the implementation of its Mental Health Strategic Plan in 2004, the VA has overseen the development of a wide array of mental health programs geared toward the complex needs of veterans. Research has demonstrated VA care outperforming Medicaid-reimbursed services in terms of the percentage of veterans filling antidepressants for at least 12 weeks after initiation of treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD), as well as posthospitalization follow-up.⁶

Eligible veterans enrolled in the VA often also seek non-VA care. Medicaid covers nearly 10% of all nonelderly veterans, and of these veterans, 39% rely solely on Medicaid for health care access.⁷ Today, Medicaid is the largest payer for mental health services in the US, providing coverage for approximately 27% of Americans who have SMI and helping fulfill unmet mental health needs.^8,9 Understanding which of these systems veterans choose to use, and under which circumstances, is essential in guiding the allocation of limited health care resources.¹⁰

Beyond Medicaid, alternatives to VA care may include TRICARE, Medicare, Indian Health Services, and employer-based or self-purchased private insurance. While these options potentially increase convenience, choice, and access to health care practitioners (HCPs) and services not available at local VA systems, cross-system utilization with poor integration may cause care coordination and continuity problems, such as medication mismanagement and opioid overdose, unnecessary duplicate utilization, and possible increased mortality.^11-15 As recent national legislative changes, such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, and the VA MISSION Act, continue to shift the health care landscape for veterans, questions surrounding how veterans are changing their health care use become significant.^16,17

Here, we approach the impacts of Medicaid expansion on veterans’ reliance on the VA for mental health services with a unique lens. We leverage a difference-in-difference design to study 2 historical Medicaid expansions in Arizona (AZ) and New York (NY), which extended eligibility to childless adults in 2001. Prior Medicaid dual-eligible mental health research investigated reliance shifts during the immediate postenrollment year in a subset of veterans newly enrolled in Medicaid.¹⁸ However, this study took place in a period of relative policy stability. In contrast, we investigate the potential effects of a broad policy shift by analyzing state-level changes in veterans’ reliance over 6 years after a statewide Medicaid expansion. We match expansion states with demographically similar nonexpansion states to account for unobserved trends and confounding effects. Prior studies have used this method to evaluate post-Medicaid expansion mortality changes and changes in veteran dual enrollment and hospitalizations.^10,19 While a study of ACA Medicaid expansion states would be ideal, Medicaid data from most states were only available through 2014 at the time of this analysis. Our study offers a quasi-experimental framework leveraging longitudinal data that can be applied as more post-ACA data become available.

Given the rising incidence of suicide among veterans, understanding care-seeking behaviors for depression among veterans is important as it is the most common psychiatric condition found in those who died by suicide.^20,21 Furthermore, depression may be useful as a clinical proxy for mental health policy impacts, given that the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) screening tool is well validated and increasingly research accessible, and it is a chronic condition responsive to both well-managed pharmacologic treatment and psychotherapeutic interventions.^22,23

In this study, we quantify the change in care-seeking behavior for depression among veterans after Medicaid expansion, using a quasi-experimental design. We hypothesize that new access to Medicaid would be associated with a shift away from using VA services for depression. Given the income-dependent eligibility requirements of Medicaid, we also hypothesize that veterans who qualified for VA coverage due to low income, determined by a regional means test (Priority group 5, “income-eligible”), would be more likely to shift care compared with those whose serviced-connected conditions related to their military service (Priority groups 1-4, “service-connected”) provide VA access.

Methods

To investigate the relative changes in veterans’ reliance on the VA for depression care after the 2001 NY and AZ Medicaid expansions We used a retrospective, difference-in-difference analysis. Our comparison pairings, based on prior demographic analyses were as follows: NY with Pennsylvania(PA); AZ with New Mexico and Nevada (NM/NV).¹⁹ The time frame of our analysis was 1999 to 2006, with pre- and postexpansion periods defined as 1999 to 2000 and 2001 to 2006, respectively.

Data

We included veterans aged 18 to 64 years, seeking care for depression from 1999 to 2006, who were also VA-enrolled and residing in our states of interest. We counted veterans as enrolled in Medicaid if they were enrolled at least 1 month in a given year.

Using similar methods like those used in prior studies, we selected patients with encounters documenting depression as the primary outpatient or inpatient diagnosis using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes: 296.2x for a single episode of major depressive disorder, 296.3x for a recurrent episode of MDD, 300.4 for dysthymia, and 311.0 for depression not otherwise specified.^18,24 We used data from the Medicaid Analytic eXtract files (MAX) for Medicaid data and the VA Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) for VA data. We chose 1999 as the first study year because it was the earliest year MAX data were available.

Our final sample included 1833 person-years pre-expansion and 7157 postexpansion in our inpatient analysis, as well as 31,767 person-years pre-expansion and 130,382 postexpansion in our outpatient analysis.

Outcomes and Variables

Our primary outcomes were comparative shifts in VA reliance between expansion and nonexpansion states after Medicaid expansion for both inpatient and outpatient depression care. For each year of study, we calculated a veteran’s VA reliance by aggregating the number of days with depression-related encounters at the VA and dividing by the total number of days with a VA or Medicaid depression-related encounters for the year. To provide context to these shifts in VA reliance, we further analyzed the changes in the proportion of annual VA-Medicaid dual users and annual per capita utilization of depression care across the VA and Medicaid. Changes in the proportion would indicate a relative shift in usage between the VA and Medicaid. Annual per capita changes demonstrate changes in the volume of usage. Understanding how proportion and volume interact is critical to understanding likely ramifications for resource management and cost. For example, a relative shift in the proportion of care toward Medicaid might be explained by a substitution effect of increased Medicaid usage and lower VA per capita usage, or an additive (or complementary) effect, with more Medicaid services coming on top of the current VA services.

We conducted subanalyses by income-eligible and service-connected veterans and adjusted our models for age, non-White race, sex, distances to the nearest inpatient and outpatient VA facilities, and VA Relative Risk Score, which is a measure of disease burden and clinical complexity validated specifically for veterans.²⁵

Statistical Analysis

We used fractional logistic regression to model the adjusted effect of Medicaid expansion on VA reliance for depression care. In parallel, we leveraged ordered logit regression and negative binomial regression models to examine the proportion of VA-Medicaid dual users and the per capita utilization of Medicaid and VA depression care, respectively. To estimate the difference-in-difference effects, we used the interaction term of 2 categorical variables—expansion vs nonexpansion states and pre- vs postexpansion status—as the independent variable. We then calculated the average marginal effects with 95% CIs to estimate the differences in outcomes between expansion and nonexpansion states from pre- to postexpansion periods, as well as year-by-year shifts as a robustness check. We conducted these analyses using Stata MP, version 15.

This project was approved by the Baylor College of Medicine Institutional Review Board (IRB # H-40441) and the Michael E. Debakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center Research and Development Committee.

Results

Baseline and postexpansion characteristics

VA Reliance

Overall, we observed postexpansion decreases in VA reliance for depression care

At the state level, reliance on the VA for inpatient depression care in NY decreased by 13.53 pp (95% CI, -22.58 to -4.49) for income-eligible veterans and 16.67 pp (95% CI, -24.53 to -8.80) for service-connected veterans. No relative differences were observed in the outpatient comparisons for both income-eligible (-0.58 pp; 95% CI, -2.13 to 0.98) and service-connected (0.05 pp; 95% CI, -1.00 to 1.10) veterans. In AZ, Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased VA reliance for outpatient depression care among income-eligible veterans (-8.60 pp; 95% CI, -10.60 to -6.61), greater than that for service-connected veterans (-2.89 pp; 95% CI, -4.02 to -1.77). This decrease in VA reliance was significant in the inpatient context only for service-connected veterans (-4.55 pp; 95% CI, -8.14 to -0.97), not income-eligible veterans (-8.38 pp; 95% CI, -17.91 to 1.16).

By applying the aggregate pp changes toward the postexpansion number of visits across both expansion and nonexpansion states, we found that expansion of Medicaid across all our study states would have resulted in 996 fewer hospitalizations and 10,109 fewer outpatient visits for depression at VA in the postexpansion period vs if no states had chosen to expand Medicaid.

Dual Use/Per Capita Utilization

Overall, Medicaid expansion was associated with greater dual use for inpatient depression care—a 0.97-pp (95% CI, 0.46 to 1.48) increase among service-connected veterans and a 0.64-pp (95% CI, 0.35 to 0.94) increase among income-eligible veterans.
At the state level, NY similarly showed increases in dual use among both service-connected (1.48 pp; 95% CI, 0.80 to 2.16) and income-eligible veterans (0.73 pp; 95% CI, 0.39 to 1.07) after Medicaid expansion. However, dual use in AZ increased significantly only among service-connected veterans (0.70 pp; 95% CI, 0.03 to 1.38), not income-eligible veterans (0.31 pp; 95% CI, -0.17 to 0.78).

Among outpatient visits, Medicaid expansion was associated with increased dual use only for income-eligible veterans (0.16 pp; 95% CI, 0.03-0.29), and not service-connected veterans (0.09 pp; 95% CI, -0.04 to 0.21). State-level analyses showed that Medicaid expansion in NY was not associated with changes in dual use for either service-connected (0.01 pp; 95% CI, -0.16 to 0.17) or income-eligible veterans (0.03 pp; 95% CI, -0.12 to 0.18), while expansion in AZ was associated with increases in dual use among both service-connected (0.42 pp; 95% CI, 0.23 to 0.61) and income-eligible veterans (0.83 pp; 95% CI, 0.59 to 1.07).

Concerning per capita utilization of depression care after Medicaid expansion, analyses showed no detectable changes for either inpatient or outpatient services, among both service-connected and income-eligible veterans. However, while this pattern held at the state level among hospitalizations, outpatient visit results showed divergent trends between AZ and NY. In NY, Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased per capita utilization of outpatient depression care among both service-connected (-0.25 visits annually; 95% CI, -0.48 to -0.01) and income-eligible veterans (-0.64 visits annually; 95% CI, -0.93 to -0.35). In AZ, Medicaid expansion was associated with increased per capita utilization of outpatient depression care among both service-connected (0.62 visits annually; 95% CI, 0.32-0.91) and income-eligible veterans (2.32 visits annually; 95% CI, 1.99-2.65).

Discussion

Our study quantified changes in depression-related health care utilization after Medicaid expansions in NY and AZ in 2001. Overall, the balance of evidence indicated that Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased reliance on the VA for depression-related services. There was an exception: income-eligible veterans in AZ did not shift their hospital care away from the VA in a statistically discernible way, although the point estimate was lower. More broadly, these findings concerning veterans’ reliance varied not only in inpatient vs outpatient services and income- vs service-connected eligibility, but also in the state-level contexts of veteran dual users and per capita utilization.

Given that the overall per capita utilization of depression care was unchanged from pre- to postexpansion periods, one might interpret the decreases in VA reliance and increases in Medicaid-VA dual users as a substitution effect from VA care to non-VA care. This could be plausible for hospitalizations where state-level analyses showed similarly stable levels of per capita utilization. However, state-level trends in our outpatient utilization analysis, especially with a substantial 2.32 pp increase in annual per capita visits among income-eligible veterans in AZ, leave open the possibility that in some cases veterans may be complementing VA care with Medicaid-reimbursed services.

The causes underlying these differences in reliance shifts between NY and AZ are likely also influenced by the policy contexts of their respective Medicaid expansions. For example, in 1999, NY passed Kendra’s Law, which established a procedure for obtaining court orders for assisted outpatient mental health treatment for individuals deemed unlikely to survive safely in the community.²⁶ A reasonable inference is that there was less unfulfilled outpatient mental health need in NY under the existing accessibility provisioned by Kendra’s Law. In addition, while both states extended coverage to childless adults under 100% of the Federal Poverty level (FPL), the AZ Medicaid expansion was via a voters’ initiative and extended family coverage to 200% FPL vs 150% FPL for families in NY. Given that the AZ Medicaid expansion enjoyed both broader public participation and generosity in terms of eligibility, its uptake and therefore effect size may have been larger than in NY for nonacute outpatient care.

Our findings contribute to the growing body of literature surrounding the changes in health care utilization after Medicaid expansion, specifically for a newly dual-eligible population of veterans seeking mental health services for depression. While prior research concerning Medicare dual-enrolled veterans has shown high reliance on the VA for both mental health diagnoses and services, scholars have established the association of Medicaid enrollment with decreased VA reliance.^27-29 Our analysis is the first to investigate state-level effects of Medicaid expansion on VA reliance for a single mental health condition using a natural experimental framework. We focus on a population that includes a large portion of veterans who are newly Medicaid-eligible due to a sweeping policy change and use demographically matched nonexpansion states to draw comparisons in VA reliance for depression care. Our findings of Medicaid expansion–associated decreases in VA reliance for depression care complement prior literature that describe Medicaid enrollment–associated decreases in VA reliance for overall mental health care.

Implications

From a systems-level perspective, the implications of shifting services away from the VA are complex and incompletely understood. The VA lacks interoperability with the electronic health records (EHRs) used by Medicaid clinicians. Consequently, significant issues of service duplication and incomplete clinical data exist for veterans seeking treatment outside of the VA system, posing health care quality and safety concerns.³⁰ On one hand, Medicaid access is associated with increased health care utilization attributed to filling unmet needs for Medicare dual enrollees, as well as increased prescription filling for psychiatric medications.^31,32 Furthermore, the only randomized control trial of Medicaid expansion to date was associated with a 9-pp decrease in positive screening rates for depression among those who received access at around 2 years postexpansion.³³ On the other hand, the VA has developed a mental health system tailored to the particular needs of veterans, and health care practitioners at the VA have significantly greater rates of military cultural competency compared to those in nonmilitary settings (70% vs 24% in the TRICARE network and 8% among those with no military or TRICARE affiliation).³⁴ Compared to individuals seeking mental health services with private insurance plans, veterans were about twice as likely to receive appropriate treatment for schizophrenia and depression at the VA.³⁵ These documented strengths of VA mental health care may together help explain the small absolute number of visits that were associated with shifts away from VA overall after Medicaid expansion.

Finally, it is worth considering extrinsic factors that influence utilization among newly dual-eligible veterans. For example, hospitalizations are less likely to be planned than outpatient services, translating to a greater importance of proximity to a nearby medical facility than a veteran’s preference of where to seek care. In the same vein, major VA medical centers are fewer and more distant on average than VA outpatient clinics, therefore reducing the advantage of a Medicaid-reimbursed outpatient clinic in terms of distance.³⁶ These realities may partially explain the proportionally larger shifts away from the VA for hospitalizations compared to outpatient care for depression.

These shifts in utilization after Medicaid expansion may have important implications for VA policymakers. First, more study is needed to know which types of veterans are more likely to use Medicaid instead of VA services—or use both Medicaid and VA services. Our research indicates unsurprisingly that veterans without service-connected disability ratings and eligible for VA services due to low income are more likely to use at least some Medicaid services. Further understanding of who switches will be useful for the VA both tailoring its services to those who prefer VA and for reaching out to specific types of patients who might be better served by staying within the VA system. Finally, VA clinicians and administrators can prioritize improving care coordination for those who chose to use both Medicaid and VA services.

Limitations and Future Directions

Our results should be interpreted within methodological and data limitations. With only 2 states in our sample, NY demonstrably skewed overall results, contributing 1.7 to 3 times more observations than AZ across subanalyses—a challenge also cited by Sommers and colleagues.¹⁹ Our veteran groupings were also unable to distinguish those veterans classified as service-connected who may also have qualified by income-eligible criteria (which would tend to understate the size of results) and those veterans who gained and then lost Medicaid coverage in a given year. Our study also faces limitations in generalizability and establishing causality. First, we included only 2 historical state Medicaid expansions, compared with the 38 states and Washington, DC, that have now expanded Medicaid to date under the ACA. Just in the 2 states from our study, we noted significant heterogeneity in the shifts associated with Medicaid expansion, which makes extrapolating specific trends difficult. Differences in underlying health care resources, legislation, and other external factors may limit the applicability of Medicaid expansion in the era of the ACA, as well as the Veterans Choice and MISSION acts. Second, while we leveraged a difference-in-difference analysis using demographically matched, neighboring comparison states, our findings are nevertheless drawn from observational data obviating causality. VA data for other sources of coverage such as private insurance are limited and not included in our study, and MAX datasets vary by quality across states, translating to potential gaps in our study cohort.²⁸Finally, as in any study using diagnoses, visits addressing care for depression may have been missed if other diagnoses were noted as primary (eg, VA clinicians carrying forward old diagnoses, like PTSD, on the problem list) or nondepression care visits may have been captured if a depression diagnosis was used by default.

Moving forward, our study demonstrates the potential for applying a natural experimental approach to studying dual-eligible veterans at the interface of Medicaid expansion. We focused on changes in VA reliance for the specific condition of depression and, in doing so, invite further inquiry into the impact of state mental health policy on outcomes more proximate to veterans’ outcomes. Clinical indicators, such as rates of antidepressant filling, utilization and duration of psychotherapy, and PHQ-9 scores, can similarly be investigated by natural experimental design. While current limits of administrative data and the siloing of EHRs may pose barriers to some of these avenues of research, multidisciplinary methodologies and data querying innovations such as natural language processing algorithms for clinical notes hold exciting opportunities to bridge the gap between policy and clinical efficacy.

Conclusions

This study applied a difference-in-difference analysis and found that Medicaid expansion is associated with decreases in VA reliance for both inpatient and outpatient services for depression. As additional data are generated from the Medicaid expansions of the ACA, similarly robust methods should be applied to further explore the impacts associated with such policy shifts and open the door to a better understanding of implications at the clinical level.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the efforts of Janine Wong, who proofread and formatted the manuscript.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, providing care for more than 9 million veterans.¹ With veterans experiencing mental health conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorders, and other serious mental illnesses (SMI) at higher rates compared with the general population, the VA plays an important role in the provision of mental health services.^2-5 Since the implementation of its Mental Health Strategic Plan in 2004, the VA has overseen the development of a wide array of mental health programs geared toward the complex needs of veterans. Research has demonstrated VA care outperforming Medicaid-reimbursed services in terms of the percentage of veterans filling antidepressants for at least 12 weeks after initiation of treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD), as well as posthospitalization follow-up.⁶

Eligible veterans enrolled in the VA often also seek non-VA care. Medicaid covers nearly 10% of all nonelderly veterans, and of these veterans, 39% rely solely on Medicaid for health care access.⁷ Today, Medicaid is the largest payer for mental health services in the US, providing coverage for approximately 27% of Americans who have SMI and helping fulfill unmet mental health needs.^8,9 Understanding which of these systems veterans choose to use, and under which circumstances, is essential in guiding the allocation of limited health care resources.¹⁰

Beyond Medicaid, alternatives to VA care may include TRICARE, Medicare, Indian Health Services, and employer-based or self-purchased private insurance. While these options potentially increase convenience, choice, and access to health care practitioners (HCPs) and services not available at local VA systems, cross-system utilization with poor integration may cause care coordination and continuity problems, such as medication mismanagement and opioid overdose, unnecessary duplicate utilization, and possible increased mortality.^11-15 As recent national legislative changes, such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, and the VA MISSION Act, continue to shift the health care landscape for veterans, questions surrounding how veterans are changing their health care use become significant.^16,17

Here, we approach the impacts of Medicaid expansion on veterans’ reliance on the VA for mental health services with a unique lens. We leverage a difference-in-difference design to study 2 historical Medicaid expansions in Arizona (AZ) and New York (NY), which extended eligibility to childless adults in 2001. Prior Medicaid dual-eligible mental health research investigated reliance shifts during the immediate postenrollment year in a subset of veterans newly enrolled in Medicaid.¹⁸ However, this study took place in a period of relative policy stability. In contrast, we investigate the potential effects of a broad policy shift by analyzing state-level changes in veterans’ reliance over 6 years after a statewide Medicaid expansion. We match expansion states with demographically similar nonexpansion states to account for unobserved trends and confounding effects. Prior studies have used this method to evaluate post-Medicaid expansion mortality changes and changes in veteran dual enrollment and hospitalizations.^10,19 While a study of ACA Medicaid expansion states would be ideal, Medicaid data from most states were only available through 2014 at the time of this analysis. Our study offers a quasi-experimental framework leveraging longitudinal data that can be applied as more post-ACA data become available.

Given the rising incidence of suicide among veterans, understanding care-seeking behaviors for depression among veterans is important as it is the most common psychiatric condition found in those who died by suicide.^20,21 Furthermore, depression may be useful as a clinical proxy for mental health policy impacts, given that the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) screening tool is well validated and increasingly research accessible, and it is a chronic condition responsive to both well-managed pharmacologic treatment and psychotherapeutic interventions.^22,23

In this study, we quantify the change in care-seeking behavior for depression among veterans after Medicaid expansion, using a quasi-experimental design. We hypothesize that new access to Medicaid would be associated with a shift away from using VA services for depression. Given the income-dependent eligibility requirements of Medicaid, we also hypothesize that veterans who qualified for VA coverage due to low income, determined by a regional means test (Priority group 5, “income-eligible”), would be more likely to shift care compared with those whose serviced-connected conditions related to their military service (Priority groups 1-4, “service-connected”) provide VA access.

Methods

To investigate the relative changes in veterans’ reliance on the VA for depression care after the 2001 NY and AZ Medicaid expansions We used a retrospective, difference-in-difference analysis. Our comparison pairings, based on prior demographic analyses were as follows: NY with Pennsylvania(PA); AZ with New Mexico and Nevada (NM/NV).¹⁹ The time frame of our analysis was 1999 to 2006, with pre- and postexpansion periods defined as 1999 to 2000 and 2001 to 2006, respectively.

Data

We included veterans aged 18 to 64 years, seeking care for depression from 1999 to 2006, who were also VA-enrolled and residing in our states of interest. We counted veterans as enrolled in Medicaid if they were enrolled at least 1 month in a given year.

Using similar methods like those used in prior studies, we selected patients with encounters documenting depression as the primary outpatient or inpatient diagnosis using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes: 296.2x for a single episode of major depressive disorder, 296.3x for a recurrent episode of MDD, 300.4 for dysthymia, and 311.0 for depression not otherwise specified.^18,24 We used data from the Medicaid Analytic eXtract files (MAX) for Medicaid data and the VA Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) for VA data. We chose 1999 as the first study year because it was the earliest year MAX data were available.

Our final sample included 1833 person-years pre-expansion and 7157 postexpansion in our inpatient analysis, as well as 31,767 person-years pre-expansion and 130,382 postexpansion in our outpatient analysis.

Outcomes and Variables

Our primary outcomes were comparative shifts in VA reliance between expansion and nonexpansion states after Medicaid expansion for both inpatient and outpatient depression care. For each year of study, we calculated a veteran’s VA reliance by aggregating the number of days with depression-related encounters at the VA and dividing by the total number of days with a VA or Medicaid depression-related encounters for the year. To provide context to these shifts in VA reliance, we further analyzed the changes in the proportion of annual VA-Medicaid dual users and annual per capita utilization of depression care across the VA and Medicaid. Changes in the proportion would indicate a relative shift in usage between the VA and Medicaid. Annual per capita changes demonstrate changes in the volume of usage. Understanding how proportion and volume interact is critical to understanding likely ramifications for resource management and cost. For example, a relative shift in the proportion of care toward Medicaid might be explained by a substitution effect of increased Medicaid usage and lower VA per capita usage, or an additive (or complementary) effect, with more Medicaid services coming on top of the current VA services.

We conducted subanalyses by income-eligible and service-connected veterans and adjusted our models for age, non-White race, sex, distances to the nearest inpatient and outpatient VA facilities, and VA Relative Risk Score, which is a measure of disease burden and clinical complexity validated specifically for veterans.²⁵

Statistical Analysis

We used fractional logistic regression to model the adjusted effect of Medicaid expansion on VA reliance for depression care. In parallel, we leveraged ordered logit regression and negative binomial regression models to examine the proportion of VA-Medicaid dual users and the per capita utilization of Medicaid and VA depression care, respectively. To estimate the difference-in-difference effects, we used the interaction term of 2 categorical variables—expansion vs nonexpansion states and pre- vs postexpansion status—as the independent variable. We then calculated the average marginal effects with 95% CIs to estimate the differences in outcomes between expansion and nonexpansion states from pre- to postexpansion periods, as well as year-by-year shifts as a robustness check. We conducted these analyses using Stata MP, version 15.

This project was approved by the Baylor College of Medicine Institutional Review Board (IRB # H-40441) and the Michael E. Debakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center Research and Development Committee.

Results

Baseline and postexpansion characteristics

VA Reliance

Overall, we observed postexpansion decreases in VA reliance for depression care

At the state level, reliance on the VA for inpatient depression care in NY decreased by 13.53 pp (95% CI, -22.58 to -4.49) for income-eligible veterans and 16.67 pp (95% CI, -24.53 to -8.80) for service-connected veterans. No relative differences were observed in the outpatient comparisons for both income-eligible (-0.58 pp; 95% CI, -2.13 to 0.98) and service-connected (0.05 pp; 95% CI, -1.00 to 1.10) veterans. In AZ, Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased VA reliance for outpatient depression care among income-eligible veterans (-8.60 pp; 95% CI, -10.60 to -6.61), greater than that for service-connected veterans (-2.89 pp; 95% CI, -4.02 to -1.77). This decrease in VA reliance was significant in the inpatient context only for service-connected veterans (-4.55 pp; 95% CI, -8.14 to -0.97), not income-eligible veterans (-8.38 pp; 95% CI, -17.91 to 1.16).

By applying the aggregate pp changes toward the postexpansion number of visits across both expansion and nonexpansion states, we found that expansion of Medicaid across all our study states would have resulted in 996 fewer hospitalizations and 10,109 fewer outpatient visits for depression at VA in the postexpansion period vs if no states had chosen to expand Medicaid.

Dual Use/Per Capita Utilization

Overall, Medicaid expansion was associated with greater dual use for inpatient depression care—a 0.97-pp (95% CI, 0.46 to 1.48) increase among service-connected veterans and a 0.64-pp (95% CI, 0.35 to 0.94) increase among income-eligible veterans.
At the state level, NY similarly showed increases in dual use among both service-connected (1.48 pp; 95% CI, 0.80 to 2.16) and income-eligible veterans (0.73 pp; 95% CI, 0.39 to 1.07) after Medicaid expansion. However, dual use in AZ increased significantly only among service-connected veterans (0.70 pp; 95% CI, 0.03 to 1.38), not income-eligible veterans (0.31 pp; 95% CI, -0.17 to 0.78).

Among outpatient visits, Medicaid expansion was associated with increased dual use only for income-eligible veterans (0.16 pp; 95% CI, 0.03-0.29), and not service-connected veterans (0.09 pp; 95% CI, -0.04 to 0.21). State-level analyses showed that Medicaid expansion in NY was not associated with changes in dual use for either service-connected (0.01 pp; 95% CI, -0.16 to 0.17) or income-eligible veterans (0.03 pp; 95% CI, -0.12 to 0.18), while expansion in AZ was associated with increases in dual use among both service-connected (0.42 pp; 95% CI, 0.23 to 0.61) and income-eligible veterans (0.83 pp; 95% CI, 0.59 to 1.07).

Concerning per capita utilization of depression care after Medicaid expansion, analyses showed no detectable changes for either inpatient or outpatient services, among both service-connected and income-eligible veterans. However, while this pattern held at the state level among hospitalizations, outpatient visit results showed divergent trends between AZ and NY. In NY, Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased per capita utilization of outpatient depression care among both service-connected (-0.25 visits annually; 95% CI, -0.48 to -0.01) and income-eligible veterans (-0.64 visits annually; 95% CI, -0.93 to -0.35). In AZ, Medicaid expansion was associated with increased per capita utilization of outpatient depression care among both service-connected (0.62 visits annually; 95% CI, 0.32-0.91) and income-eligible veterans (2.32 visits annually; 95% CI, 1.99-2.65).

Discussion

Our study quantified changes in depression-related health care utilization after Medicaid expansions in NY and AZ in 2001. Overall, the balance of evidence indicated that Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased reliance on the VA for depression-related services. There was an exception: income-eligible veterans in AZ did not shift their hospital care away from the VA in a statistically discernible way, although the point estimate was lower. More broadly, these findings concerning veterans’ reliance varied not only in inpatient vs outpatient services and income- vs service-connected eligibility, but also in the state-level contexts of veteran dual users and per capita utilization.

Given that the overall per capita utilization of depression care was unchanged from pre- to postexpansion periods, one might interpret the decreases in VA reliance and increases in Medicaid-VA dual users as a substitution effect from VA care to non-VA care. This could be plausible for hospitalizations where state-level analyses showed similarly stable levels of per capita utilization. However, state-level trends in our outpatient utilization analysis, especially with a substantial 2.32 pp increase in annual per capita visits among income-eligible veterans in AZ, leave open the possibility that in some cases veterans may be complementing VA care with Medicaid-reimbursed services.

The causes underlying these differences in reliance shifts between NY and AZ are likely also influenced by the policy contexts of their respective Medicaid expansions. For example, in 1999, NY passed Kendra’s Law, which established a procedure for obtaining court orders for assisted outpatient mental health treatment for individuals deemed unlikely to survive safely in the community.²⁶ A reasonable inference is that there was less unfulfilled outpatient mental health need in NY under the existing accessibility provisioned by Kendra’s Law. In addition, while both states extended coverage to childless adults under 100% of the Federal Poverty level (FPL), the AZ Medicaid expansion was via a voters’ initiative and extended family coverage to 200% FPL vs 150% FPL for families in NY. Given that the AZ Medicaid expansion enjoyed both broader public participation and generosity in terms of eligibility, its uptake and therefore effect size may have been larger than in NY for nonacute outpatient care.

Our findings contribute to the growing body of literature surrounding the changes in health care utilization after Medicaid expansion, specifically for a newly dual-eligible population of veterans seeking mental health services for depression. While prior research concerning Medicare dual-enrolled veterans has shown high reliance on the VA for both mental health diagnoses and services, scholars have established the association of Medicaid enrollment with decreased VA reliance.^27-29 Our analysis is the first to investigate state-level effects of Medicaid expansion on VA reliance for a single mental health condition using a natural experimental framework. We focus on a population that includes a large portion of veterans who are newly Medicaid-eligible due to a sweeping policy change and use demographically matched nonexpansion states to draw comparisons in VA reliance for depression care. Our findings of Medicaid expansion–associated decreases in VA reliance for depression care complement prior literature that describe Medicaid enrollment–associated decreases in VA reliance for overall mental health care.

Implications

From a systems-level perspective, the implications of shifting services away from the VA are complex and incompletely understood. The VA lacks interoperability with the electronic health records (EHRs) used by Medicaid clinicians. Consequently, significant issues of service duplication and incomplete clinical data exist for veterans seeking treatment outside of the VA system, posing health care quality and safety concerns.³⁰ On one hand, Medicaid access is associated with increased health care utilization attributed to filling unmet needs for Medicare dual enrollees, as well as increased prescription filling for psychiatric medications.^31,32 Furthermore, the only randomized control trial of Medicaid expansion to date was associated with a 9-pp decrease in positive screening rates for depression among those who received access at around 2 years postexpansion.³³ On the other hand, the VA has developed a mental health system tailored to the particular needs of veterans, and health care practitioners at the VA have significantly greater rates of military cultural competency compared to those in nonmilitary settings (70% vs 24% in the TRICARE network and 8% among those with no military or TRICARE affiliation).³⁴ Compared to individuals seeking mental health services with private insurance plans, veterans were about twice as likely to receive appropriate treatment for schizophrenia and depression at the VA.³⁵ These documented strengths of VA mental health care may together help explain the small absolute number of visits that were associated with shifts away from VA overall after Medicaid expansion.

Finally, it is worth considering extrinsic factors that influence utilization among newly dual-eligible veterans. For example, hospitalizations are less likely to be planned than outpatient services, translating to a greater importance of proximity to a nearby medical facility than a veteran’s preference of where to seek care. In the same vein, major VA medical centers are fewer and more distant on average than VA outpatient clinics, therefore reducing the advantage of a Medicaid-reimbursed outpatient clinic in terms of distance.³⁶ These realities may partially explain the proportionally larger shifts away from the VA for hospitalizations compared to outpatient care for depression.

These shifts in utilization after Medicaid expansion may have important implications for VA policymakers. First, more study is needed to know which types of veterans are more likely to use Medicaid instead of VA services—or use both Medicaid and VA services. Our research indicates unsurprisingly that veterans without service-connected disability ratings and eligible for VA services due to low income are more likely to use at least some Medicaid services. Further understanding of who switches will be useful for the VA both tailoring its services to those who prefer VA and for reaching out to specific types of patients who might be better served by staying within the VA system. Finally, VA clinicians and administrators can prioritize improving care coordination for those who chose to use both Medicaid and VA services.

Limitations and Future Directions

Our results should be interpreted within methodological and data limitations. With only 2 states in our sample, NY demonstrably skewed overall results, contributing 1.7 to 3 times more observations than AZ across subanalyses—a challenge also cited by Sommers and colleagues.¹⁹ Our veteran groupings were also unable to distinguish those veterans classified as service-connected who may also have qualified by income-eligible criteria (which would tend to understate the size of results) and those veterans who gained and then lost Medicaid coverage in a given year. Our study also faces limitations in generalizability and establishing causality. First, we included only 2 historical state Medicaid expansions, compared with the 38 states and Washington, DC, that have now expanded Medicaid to date under the ACA. Just in the 2 states from our study, we noted significant heterogeneity in the shifts associated with Medicaid expansion, which makes extrapolating specific trends difficult. Differences in underlying health care resources, legislation, and other external factors may limit the applicability of Medicaid expansion in the era of the ACA, as well as the Veterans Choice and MISSION acts. Second, while we leveraged a difference-in-difference analysis using demographically matched, neighboring comparison states, our findings are nevertheless drawn from observational data obviating causality. VA data for other sources of coverage such as private insurance are limited and not included in our study, and MAX datasets vary by quality across states, translating to potential gaps in our study cohort.²⁸Finally, as in any study using diagnoses, visits addressing care for depression may have been missed if other diagnoses were noted as primary (eg, VA clinicians carrying forward old diagnoses, like PTSD, on the problem list) or nondepression care visits may have been captured if a depression diagnosis was used by default.

Moving forward, our study demonstrates the potential for applying a natural experimental approach to studying dual-eligible veterans at the interface of Medicaid expansion. We focused on changes in VA reliance for the specific condition of depression and, in doing so, invite further inquiry into the impact of state mental health policy on outcomes more proximate to veterans’ outcomes. Clinical indicators, such as rates of antidepressant filling, utilization and duration of psychotherapy, and PHQ-9 scores, can similarly be investigated by natural experimental design. While current limits of administrative data and the siloing of EHRs may pose barriers to some of these avenues of research, multidisciplinary methodologies and data querying innovations such as natural language processing algorithms for clinical notes hold exciting opportunities to bridge the gap between policy and clinical efficacy.

Conclusions

This study applied a difference-in-difference analysis and found that Medicaid expansion is associated with decreases in VA reliance for both inpatient and outpatient services for depression. As additional data are generated from the Medicaid expansions of the ACA, similarly robust methods should be applied to further explore the impacts associated with such policy shifts and open the door to a better understanding of implications at the clinical level.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the efforts of Janine Wong, who proofread and formatted the manuscript.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is the largest integrated health care system in the United States, providing care for more than 9 million veterans.¹ With veterans experiencing mental health conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use disorders, and other serious mental illnesses (SMI) at higher rates compared with the general population, the VA plays an important role in the provision of mental health services.^2-5 Since the implementation of its Mental Health Strategic Plan in 2004, the VA has overseen the development of a wide array of mental health programs geared toward the complex needs of veterans. Research has demonstrated VA care outperforming Medicaid-reimbursed services in terms of the percentage of veterans filling antidepressants for at least 12 weeks after initiation of treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD), as well as posthospitalization follow-up.⁶

Eligible veterans enrolled in the VA often also seek non-VA care. Medicaid covers nearly 10% of all nonelderly veterans, and of these veterans, 39% rely solely on Medicaid for health care access.⁷ Today, Medicaid is the largest payer for mental health services in the US, providing coverage for approximately 27% of Americans who have SMI and helping fulfill unmet mental health needs.^8,9 Understanding which of these systems veterans choose to use, and under which circumstances, is essential in guiding the allocation of limited health care resources.¹⁰

Beyond Medicaid, alternatives to VA care may include TRICARE, Medicare, Indian Health Services, and employer-based or self-purchased private insurance. While these options potentially increase convenience, choice, and access to health care practitioners (HCPs) and services not available at local VA systems, cross-system utilization with poor integration may cause care coordination and continuity problems, such as medication mismanagement and opioid overdose, unnecessary duplicate utilization, and possible increased mortality.^11-15 As recent national legislative changes, such as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, and the VA MISSION Act, continue to shift the health care landscape for veterans, questions surrounding how veterans are changing their health care use become significant.^16,17

Here, we approach the impacts of Medicaid expansion on veterans’ reliance on the VA for mental health services with a unique lens. We leverage a difference-in-difference design to study 2 historical Medicaid expansions in Arizona (AZ) and New York (NY), which extended eligibility to childless adults in 2001. Prior Medicaid dual-eligible mental health research investigated reliance shifts during the immediate postenrollment year in a subset of veterans newly enrolled in Medicaid.¹⁸ However, this study took place in a period of relative policy stability. In contrast, we investigate the potential effects of a broad policy shift by analyzing state-level changes in veterans’ reliance over 6 years after a statewide Medicaid expansion. We match expansion states with demographically similar nonexpansion states to account for unobserved trends and confounding effects. Prior studies have used this method to evaluate post-Medicaid expansion mortality changes and changes in veteran dual enrollment and hospitalizations.^10,19 While a study of ACA Medicaid expansion states would be ideal, Medicaid data from most states were only available through 2014 at the time of this analysis. Our study offers a quasi-experimental framework leveraging longitudinal data that can be applied as more post-ACA data become available.

Given the rising incidence of suicide among veterans, understanding care-seeking behaviors for depression among veterans is important as it is the most common psychiatric condition found in those who died by suicide.^20,21 Furthermore, depression may be useful as a clinical proxy for mental health policy impacts, given that the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) screening tool is well validated and increasingly research accessible, and it is a chronic condition responsive to both well-managed pharmacologic treatment and psychotherapeutic interventions.^22,23

In this study, we quantify the change in care-seeking behavior for depression among veterans after Medicaid expansion, using a quasi-experimental design. We hypothesize that new access to Medicaid would be associated with a shift away from using VA services for depression. Given the income-dependent eligibility requirements of Medicaid, we also hypothesize that veterans who qualified for VA coverage due to low income, determined by a regional means test (Priority group 5, “income-eligible”), would be more likely to shift care compared with those whose serviced-connected conditions related to their military service (Priority groups 1-4, “service-connected”) provide VA access.

Methods

To investigate the relative changes in veterans’ reliance on the VA for depression care after the 2001 NY and AZ Medicaid expansions We used a retrospective, difference-in-difference analysis. Our comparison pairings, based on prior demographic analyses were as follows: NY with Pennsylvania(PA); AZ with New Mexico and Nevada (NM/NV).¹⁹ The time frame of our analysis was 1999 to 2006, with pre- and postexpansion periods defined as 1999 to 2000 and 2001 to 2006, respectively.

Data

We included veterans aged 18 to 64 years, seeking care for depression from 1999 to 2006, who were also VA-enrolled and residing in our states of interest. We counted veterans as enrolled in Medicaid if they were enrolled at least 1 month in a given year.

Using similar methods like those used in prior studies, we selected patients with encounters documenting depression as the primary outpatient or inpatient diagnosis using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM) codes: 296.2x for a single episode of major depressive disorder, 296.3x for a recurrent episode of MDD, 300.4 for dysthymia, and 311.0 for depression not otherwise specified.^18,24 We used data from the Medicaid Analytic eXtract files (MAX) for Medicaid data and the VA Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW) for VA data. We chose 1999 as the first study year because it was the earliest year MAX data were available.

Our final sample included 1833 person-years pre-expansion and 7157 postexpansion in our inpatient analysis, as well as 31,767 person-years pre-expansion and 130,382 postexpansion in our outpatient analysis.

Outcomes and Variables

Our primary outcomes were comparative shifts in VA reliance between expansion and nonexpansion states after Medicaid expansion for both inpatient and outpatient depression care. For each year of study, we calculated a veteran’s VA reliance by aggregating the number of days with depression-related encounters at the VA and dividing by the total number of days with a VA or Medicaid depression-related encounters for the year. To provide context to these shifts in VA reliance, we further analyzed the changes in the proportion of annual VA-Medicaid dual users and annual per capita utilization of depression care across the VA and Medicaid. Changes in the proportion would indicate a relative shift in usage between the VA and Medicaid. Annual per capita changes demonstrate changes in the volume of usage. Understanding how proportion and volume interact is critical to understanding likely ramifications for resource management and cost. For example, a relative shift in the proportion of care toward Medicaid might be explained by a substitution effect of increased Medicaid usage and lower VA per capita usage, or an additive (or complementary) effect, with more Medicaid services coming on top of the current VA services.

We conducted subanalyses by income-eligible and service-connected veterans and adjusted our models for age, non-White race, sex, distances to the nearest inpatient and outpatient VA facilities, and VA Relative Risk Score, which is a measure of disease burden and clinical complexity validated specifically for veterans.²⁵

Statistical Analysis

We used fractional logistic regression to model the adjusted effect of Medicaid expansion on VA reliance for depression care. In parallel, we leveraged ordered logit regression and negative binomial regression models to examine the proportion of VA-Medicaid dual users and the per capita utilization of Medicaid and VA depression care, respectively. To estimate the difference-in-difference effects, we used the interaction term of 2 categorical variables—expansion vs nonexpansion states and pre- vs postexpansion status—as the independent variable. We then calculated the average marginal effects with 95% CIs to estimate the differences in outcomes between expansion and nonexpansion states from pre- to postexpansion periods, as well as year-by-year shifts as a robustness check. We conducted these analyses using Stata MP, version 15.

This project was approved by the Baylor College of Medicine Institutional Review Board (IRB # H-40441) and the Michael E. Debakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center Research and Development Committee.

Results

Baseline and postexpansion characteristics

VA Reliance

Overall, we observed postexpansion decreases in VA reliance for depression care

At the state level, reliance on the VA for inpatient depression care in NY decreased by 13.53 pp (95% CI, -22.58 to -4.49) for income-eligible veterans and 16.67 pp (95% CI, -24.53 to -8.80) for service-connected veterans. No relative differences were observed in the outpatient comparisons for both income-eligible (-0.58 pp; 95% CI, -2.13 to 0.98) and service-connected (0.05 pp; 95% CI, -1.00 to 1.10) veterans. In AZ, Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased VA reliance for outpatient depression care among income-eligible veterans (-8.60 pp; 95% CI, -10.60 to -6.61), greater than that for service-connected veterans (-2.89 pp; 95% CI, -4.02 to -1.77). This decrease in VA reliance was significant in the inpatient context only for service-connected veterans (-4.55 pp; 95% CI, -8.14 to -0.97), not income-eligible veterans (-8.38 pp; 95% CI, -17.91 to 1.16).

By applying the aggregate pp changes toward the postexpansion number of visits across both expansion and nonexpansion states, we found that expansion of Medicaid across all our study states would have resulted in 996 fewer hospitalizations and 10,109 fewer outpatient visits for depression at VA in the postexpansion period vs if no states had chosen to expand Medicaid.

Dual Use/Per Capita Utilization

Overall, Medicaid expansion was associated with greater dual use for inpatient depression care—a 0.97-pp (95% CI, 0.46 to 1.48) increase among service-connected veterans and a 0.64-pp (95% CI, 0.35 to 0.94) increase among income-eligible veterans.
At the state level, NY similarly showed increases in dual use among both service-connected (1.48 pp; 95% CI, 0.80 to 2.16) and income-eligible veterans (0.73 pp; 95% CI, 0.39 to 1.07) after Medicaid expansion. However, dual use in AZ increased significantly only among service-connected veterans (0.70 pp; 95% CI, 0.03 to 1.38), not income-eligible veterans (0.31 pp; 95% CI, -0.17 to 0.78).

Among outpatient visits, Medicaid expansion was associated with increased dual use only for income-eligible veterans (0.16 pp; 95% CI, 0.03-0.29), and not service-connected veterans (0.09 pp; 95% CI, -0.04 to 0.21). State-level analyses showed that Medicaid expansion in NY was not associated with changes in dual use for either service-connected (0.01 pp; 95% CI, -0.16 to 0.17) or income-eligible veterans (0.03 pp; 95% CI, -0.12 to 0.18), while expansion in AZ was associated with increases in dual use among both service-connected (0.42 pp; 95% CI, 0.23 to 0.61) and income-eligible veterans (0.83 pp; 95% CI, 0.59 to 1.07).

Concerning per capita utilization of depression care after Medicaid expansion, analyses showed no detectable changes for either inpatient or outpatient services, among both service-connected and income-eligible veterans. However, while this pattern held at the state level among hospitalizations, outpatient visit results showed divergent trends between AZ and NY. In NY, Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased per capita utilization of outpatient depression care among both service-connected (-0.25 visits annually; 95% CI, -0.48 to -0.01) and income-eligible veterans (-0.64 visits annually; 95% CI, -0.93 to -0.35). In AZ, Medicaid expansion was associated with increased per capita utilization of outpatient depression care among both service-connected (0.62 visits annually; 95% CI, 0.32-0.91) and income-eligible veterans (2.32 visits annually; 95% CI, 1.99-2.65).

Discussion

Our study quantified changes in depression-related health care utilization after Medicaid expansions in NY and AZ in 2001. Overall, the balance of evidence indicated that Medicaid expansion was associated with decreased reliance on the VA for depression-related services. There was an exception: income-eligible veterans in AZ did not shift their hospital care away from the VA in a statistically discernible way, although the point estimate was lower. More broadly, these findings concerning veterans’ reliance varied not only in inpatient vs outpatient services and income- vs service-connected eligibility, but also in the state-level contexts of veteran dual users and per capita utilization.

Given that the overall per capita utilization of depression care was unchanged from pre- to postexpansion periods, one might interpret the decreases in VA reliance and increases in Medicaid-VA dual users as a substitution effect from VA care to non-VA care. This could be plausible for hospitalizations where state-level analyses showed similarly stable levels of per capita utilization. However, state-level trends in our outpatient utilization analysis, especially with a substantial 2.32 pp increase in annual per capita visits among income-eligible veterans in AZ, leave open the possibility that in some cases veterans may be complementing VA care with Medicaid-reimbursed services.

The causes underlying these differences in reliance shifts between NY and AZ are likely also influenced by the policy contexts of their respective Medicaid expansions. For example, in 1999, NY passed Kendra’s Law, which established a procedure for obtaining court orders for assisted outpatient mental health treatment for individuals deemed unlikely to survive safely in the community.²⁶ A reasonable inference is that there was less unfulfilled outpatient mental health need in NY under the existing accessibility provisioned by Kendra’s Law. In addition, while both states extended coverage to childless adults under 100% of the Federal Poverty level (FPL), the AZ Medicaid expansion was via a voters’ initiative and extended family coverage to 200% FPL vs 150% FPL for families in NY. Given that the AZ Medicaid expansion enjoyed both broader public participation and generosity in terms of eligibility, its uptake and therefore effect size may have been larger than in NY for nonacute outpatient care.

Our findings contribute to the growing body of literature surrounding the changes in health care utilization after Medicaid expansion, specifically for a newly dual-eligible population of veterans seeking mental health services for depression. While prior research concerning Medicare dual-enrolled veterans has shown high reliance on the VA for both mental health diagnoses and services, scholars have established the association of Medicaid enrollment with decreased VA reliance.^27-29 Our analysis is the first to investigate state-level effects of Medicaid expansion on VA reliance for a single mental health condition using a natural experimental framework. We focus on a population that includes a large portion of veterans who are newly Medicaid-eligible due to a sweeping policy change and use demographically matched nonexpansion states to draw comparisons in VA reliance for depression care. Our findings of Medicaid expansion–associated decreases in VA reliance for depression care complement prior literature that describe Medicaid enrollment–associated decreases in VA reliance for overall mental health care.

Implications

From a systems-level perspective, the implications of shifting services away from the VA are complex and incompletely understood. The VA lacks interoperability with the electronic health records (EHRs) used by Medicaid clinicians. Consequently, significant issues of service duplication and incomplete clinical data exist for veterans seeking treatment outside of the VA system, posing health care quality and safety concerns.³⁰ On one hand, Medicaid access is associated with increased health care utilization attributed to filling unmet needs for Medicare dual enrollees, as well as increased prescription filling for psychiatric medications.^31,32 Furthermore, the only randomized control trial of Medicaid expansion to date was associated with a 9-pp decrease in positive screening rates for depression among those who received access at around 2 years postexpansion.³³ On the other hand, the VA has developed a mental health system tailored to the particular needs of veterans, and health care practitioners at the VA have significantly greater rates of military cultural competency compared to those in nonmilitary settings (70% vs 24% in the TRICARE network and 8% among those with no military or TRICARE affiliation).³⁴ Compared to individuals seeking mental health services with private insurance plans, veterans were about twice as likely to receive appropriate treatment for schizophrenia and depression at the VA.³⁵ These documented strengths of VA mental health care may together help explain the small absolute number of visits that were associated with shifts away from VA overall after Medicaid expansion.

Finally, it is worth considering extrinsic factors that influence utilization among newly dual-eligible veterans. For example, hospitalizations are less likely to be planned than outpatient services, translating to a greater importance of proximity to a nearby medical facility than a veteran’s preference of where to seek care. In the same vein, major VA medical centers are fewer and more distant on average than VA outpatient clinics, therefore reducing the advantage of a Medicaid-reimbursed outpatient clinic in terms of distance.³⁶ These realities may partially explain the proportionally larger shifts away from the VA for hospitalizations compared to outpatient care for depression.

These shifts in utilization after Medicaid expansion may have important implications for VA policymakers. First, more study is needed to know which types of veterans are more likely to use Medicaid instead of VA services—or use both Medicaid and VA services. Our research indicates unsurprisingly that veterans without service-connected disability ratings and eligible for VA services due to low income are more likely to use at least some Medicaid services. Further understanding of who switches will be useful for the VA both tailoring its services to those who prefer VA and for reaching out to specific types of patients who might be better served by staying within the VA system. Finally, VA clinicians and administrators can prioritize improving care coordination for those who chose to use both Medicaid and VA services.

Limitations and Future Directions

Our results should be interpreted within methodological and data limitations. With only 2 states in our sample, NY demonstrably skewed overall results, contributing 1.7 to 3 times more observations than AZ across subanalyses—a challenge also cited by Sommers and colleagues.¹⁹ Our veteran groupings were also unable to distinguish those veterans classified as service-connected who may also have qualified by income-eligible criteria (which would tend to understate the size of results) and those veterans who gained and then lost Medicaid coverage in a given year. Our study also faces limitations in generalizability and establishing causality. First, we included only 2 historical state Medicaid expansions, compared with the 38 states and Washington, DC, that have now expanded Medicaid to date under the ACA. Just in the 2 states from our study, we noted significant heterogeneity in the shifts associated with Medicaid expansion, which makes extrapolating specific trends difficult. Differences in underlying health care resources, legislation, and other external factors may limit the applicability of Medicaid expansion in the era of the ACA, as well as the Veterans Choice and MISSION acts. Second, while we leveraged a difference-in-difference analysis using demographically matched, neighboring comparison states, our findings are nevertheless drawn from observational data obviating causality. VA data for other sources of coverage such as private insurance are limited and not included in our study, and MAX datasets vary by quality across states, translating to potential gaps in our study cohort.²⁸Finally, as in any study using diagnoses, visits addressing care for depression may have been missed if other diagnoses were noted as primary (eg, VA clinicians carrying forward old diagnoses, like PTSD, on the problem list) or nondepression care visits may have been captured if a depression diagnosis was used by default.

Moving forward, our study demonstrates the potential for applying a natural experimental approach to studying dual-eligible veterans at the interface of Medicaid expansion. We focused on changes in VA reliance for the specific condition of depression and, in doing so, invite further inquiry into the impact of state mental health policy on outcomes more proximate to veterans’ outcomes. Clinical indicators, such as rates of antidepressant filling, utilization and duration of psychotherapy, and PHQ-9 scores, can similarly be investigated by natural experimental design. While current limits of administrative data and the siloing of EHRs may pose barriers to some of these avenues of research, multidisciplinary methodologies and data querying innovations such as natural language processing algorithms for clinical notes hold exciting opportunities to bridge the gap between policy and clinical efficacy.

Conclusions

This study applied a difference-in-difference analysis and found that Medicaid expansion is associated with decreases in VA reliance for both inpatient and outpatient services for depression. As additional data are generated from the Medicaid expansions of the ACA, similarly robust methods should be applied to further explore the impacts associated with such policy shifts and open the door to a better understanding of implications at the clinical level.

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the efforts of Janine Wong, who proofread and formatted the manuscript.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released updated and expanded recommendations for prescribing opioids for adults with acute and chronic pain not related to cancer, sickle cell disease, or palliative/end-of-life care.

The 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline provides guidance on determining whether to initiate opioids for pain; selecting opioids and determining opioid dosages; deciding duration of initial opioid prescription and conducting follow-up; and assessing risk and addressing potential harms of opioid use.

“Patients with pain should receive compassionate, safe, and effective pain care. We want clinicians and patients to have the information they need to weigh the benefits of different approaches to pain care, with the goal of helping people reduce their pain and improve their quality of life,” Christopher M. Jones, PharmD, DrPH, acting director for the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, said in a news release.
 

How to taper safely

The last guideline on the topic was released by CDC in 2016. Since then, new evidence has emerged regarding the benefits and risks of prescription opioids for acute and chronic pain, comparisons with nonopioid pain treatments, dosing strategies, opioid dose-dependent effects, risk mitigation strategies, and opioid tapering and discontinuation, the CDC says.

A “critical” addition to the 2022 guideline is advice on tapering opioids, Dr. Jones said during a press briefing.

“Practical tips on how to taper in an individualized patient-centered manner have been added to help clinicians if the decision is made to taper opioids, and the guideline explicitly advises against abrupt discontinuation or rapid dose reductions of opioids,” Dr. Jones said.

“That is based on lessons learned over the last several years as well as new science about how we approach tapering and the real harms that can result when patients are abruptly discontinued or rapidly tapered,” he added.

The updated guideline was published online Nov. 3 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Key recommendations in the 100-page document include the following:

• In determining whether or not to initiate opioids, nonopioid therapies are at least as effective as opioids for many common types of acute pain. Use of nondrug and nonopioid drug therapies should be maximized as appropriate, and opioid therapy should only be considered for acute pain if it is anticipated that benefits outweigh risks to the patient.
• Before starting opioid therapy, providers should discuss with patients the realistic benefits and known risks of opioid therapy.
• Before starting ongoing opioid therapy for patients with subacute pain lasting 1 to 3 months or chronic pain lasting more than 3 months, providers should work with patients to establish treatment goals for pain and function, and consideration should be given as to how opioid therapy will be discontinued if benefits do not outweigh risks.
• Once opioids are started, the lowest effective dose of immediate-release opioids should be prescribed for no longer than needed for the expected duration of pain severe enough to require opioids.
• Within 1 to 4 weeks of starting opioid therapy for subacute or chronic pain, providers should work with patients to evaluate and carefully weigh benefits and risks of continuing opioid therapy; care should be exercised when increasing, continuing, or reducing opioid dosage.
• Before starting and periodically during ongoing opioid therapy, providers should evaluate risk for opioid-related harms and should work with patients to incorporate relevant strategies to mitigate risk, including offering naloxone and reviewing potential interactions with any other prescribed medications or substance used.
• Abrupt discontinuation of opioids should be avoided, especially for patients receiving high doses.
• For treating patients with opioid use disorder, treatment with evidence-based medications should be provided, or arrangements for such treatment should be made.

Dr. Jones emphasized that the guideline is “voluntary and meant to guide shared decision-making between a clinician and patient. It’s not meant to be implemented as absolute limits of policy or practice by clinicians, health systems, insurance companies, governmental entities.”

He also noted that the “current state of the overdose crisis, which is very much driven by illicit synthetic opioids, is not the aim of this guideline.

“The release of this guideline is really about advancing pain care and improving the lives of patients living with pain,” he said.

“We know that at least 1 in 5 people in the country have chronic pain. It’s one of the most common reasons why people present to their health care provider, and the goal here is to advance pain care, function, and quality of life for that patient population, while also reducing misuse, diversion, and consequences of prescription opioid misuse,” Dr. Jones added.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released updated and expanded recommendations for prescribing opioids for adults with acute and chronic pain not related to cancer, sickle cell disease, or palliative/end-of-life care.

The 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline provides guidance on determining whether to initiate opioids for pain; selecting opioids and determining opioid dosages; deciding duration of initial opioid prescription and conducting follow-up; and assessing risk and addressing potential harms of opioid use.

“Patients with pain should receive compassionate, safe, and effective pain care. We want clinicians and patients to have the information they need to weigh the benefits of different approaches to pain care, with the goal of helping people reduce their pain and improve their quality of life,” Christopher M. Jones, PharmD, DrPH, acting director for the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, said in a news release.
 

How to taper safely

The last guideline on the topic was released by CDC in 2016. Since then, new evidence has emerged regarding the benefits and risks of prescription opioids for acute and chronic pain, comparisons with nonopioid pain treatments, dosing strategies, opioid dose-dependent effects, risk mitigation strategies, and opioid tapering and discontinuation, the CDC says.

A “critical” addition to the 2022 guideline is advice on tapering opioids, Dr. Jones said during a press briefing.

“Practical tips on how to taper in an individualized patient-centered manner have been added to help clinicians if the decision is made to taper opioids, and the guideline explicitly advises against abrupt discontinuation or rapid dose reductions of opioids,” Dr. Jones said.

“That is based on lessons learned over the last several years as well as new science about how we approach tapering and the real harms that can result when patients are abruptly discontinued or rapidly tapered,” he added.

The updated guideline was published online Nov. 3 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Key recommendations in the 100-page document include the following:

• In determining whether or not to initiate opioids, nonopioid therapies are at least as effective as opioids for many common types of acute pain. Use of nondrug and nonopioid drug therapies should be maximized as appropriate, and opioid therapy should only be considered for acute pain if it is anticipated that benefits outweigh risks to the patient.
• Before starting opioid therapy, providers should discuss with patients the realistic benefits and known risks of opioid therapy.
• Before starting ongoing opioid therapy for patients with subacute pain lasting 1 to 3 months or chronic pain lasting more than 3 months, providers should work with patients to establish treatment goals for pain and function, and consideration should be given as to how opioid therapy will be discontinued if benefits do not outweigh risks.
• Once opioids are started, the lowest effective dose of immediate-release opioids should be prescribed for no longer than needed for the expected duration of pain severe enough to require opioids.
• Within 1 to 4 weeks of starting opioid therapy for subacute or chronic pain, providers should work with patients to evaluate and carefully weigh benefits and risks of continuing opioid therapy; care should be exercised when increasing, continuing, or reducing opioid dosage.
• Before starting and periodically during ongoing opioid therapy, providers should evaluate risk for opioid-related harms and should work with patients to incorporate relevant strategies to mitigate risk, including offering naloxone and reviewing potential interactions with any other prescribed medications or substance used.
• Abrupt discontinuation of opioids should be avoided, especially for patients receiving high doses.
• For treating patients with opioid use disorder, treatment with evidence-based medications should be provided, or arrangements for such treatment should be made.

Dr. Jones emphasized that the guideline is “voluntary and meant to guide shared decision-making between a clinician and patient. It’s not meant to be implemented as absolute limits of policy or practice by clinicians, health systems, insurance companies, governmental entities.”

He also noted that the “current state of the overdose crisis, which is very much driven by illicit synthetic opioids, is not the aim of this guideline.

“The release of this guideline is really about advancing pain care and improving the lives of patients living with pain,” he said.

“We know that at least 1 in 5 people in the country have chronic pain. It’s one of the most common reasons why people present to their health care provider, and the goal here is to advance pain care, function, and quality of life for that patient population, while also reducing misuse, diversion, and consequences of prescription opioid misuse,” Dr. Jones added.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released updated and expanded recommendations for prescribing opioids for adults with acute and chronic pain not related to cancer, sickle cell disease, or palliative/end-of-life care.

The 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline provides guidance on determining whether to initiate opioids for pain; selecting opioids and determining opioid dosages; deciding duration of initial opioid prescription and conducting follow-up; and assessing risk and addressing potential harms of opioid use.

“Patients with pain should receive compassionate, safe, and effective pain care. We want clinicians and patients to have the information they need to weigh the benefits of different approaches to pain care, with the goal of helping people reduce their pain and improve their quality of life,” Christopher M. Jones, PharmD, DrPH, acting director for the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, said in a news release.
 

How to taper safely

The last guideline on the topic was released by CDC in 2016. Since then, new evidence has emerged regarding the benefits and risks of prescription opioids for acute and chronic pain, comparisons with nonopioid pain treatments, dosing strategies, opioid dose-dependent effects, risk mitigation strategies, and opioid tapering and discontinuation, the CDC says.

A “critical” addition to the 2022 guideline is advice on tapering opioids, Dr. Jones said during a press briefing.

“Practical tips on how to taper in an individualized patient-centered manner have been added to help clinicians if the decision is made to taper opioids, and the guideline explicitly advises against abrupt discontinuation or rapid dose reductions of opioids,” Dr. Jones said.

“That is based on lessons learned over the last several years as well as new science about how we approach tapering and the real harms that can result when patients are abruptly discontinued or rapidly tapered,” he added.

The updated guideline was published online Nov. 3 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Key recommendations in the 100-page document include the following:

• In determining whether or not to initiate opioids, nonopioid therapies are at least as effective as opioids for many common types of acute pain. Use of nondrug and nonopioid drug therapies should be maximized as appropriate, and opioid therapy should only be considered for acute pain if it is anticipated that benefits outweigh risks to the patient.
• Before starting opioid therapy, providers should discuss with patients the realistic benefits and known risks of opioid therapy.
• Before starting ongoing opioid therapy for patients with subacute pain lasting 1 to 3 months or chronic pain lasting more than 3 months, providers should work with patients to establish treatment goals for pain and function, and consideration should be given as to how opioid therapy will be discontinued if benefits do not outweigh risks.
• Once opioids are started, the lowest effective dose of immediate-release opioids should be prescribed for no longer than needed for the expected duration of pain severe enough to require opioids.
• Within 1 to 4 weeks of starting opioid therapy for subacute or chronic pain, providers should work with patients to evaluate and carefully weigh benefits and risks of continuing opioid therapy; care should be exercised when increasing, continuing, or reducing opioid dosage.
• Before starting and periodically during ongoing opioid therapy, providers should evaluate risk for opioid-related harms and should work with patients to incorporate relevant strategies to mitigate risk, including offering naloxone and reviewing potential interactions with any other prescribed medications or substance used.
• Abrupt discontinuation of opioids should be avoided, especially for patients receiving high doses.
• For treating patients with opioid use disorder, treatment with evidence-based medications should be provided, or arrangements for such treatment should be made.

Dr. Jones emphasized that the guideline is “voluntary and meant to guide shared decision-making between a clinician and patient. It’s not meant to be implemented as absolute limits of policy or practice by clinicians, health systems, insurance companies, governmental entities.”

He also noted that the “current state of the overdose crisis, which is very much driven by illicit synthetic opioids, is not the aim of this guideline.

“The release of this guideline is really about advancing pain care and improving the lives of patients living with pain,” he said.

“We know that at least 1 in 5 people in the country have chronic pain. It’s one of the most common reasons why people present to their health care provider, and the goal here is to advance pain care, function, and quality of life for that patient population, while also reducing misuse, diversion, and consequences of prescription opioid misuse,” Dr. Jones added.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Some 80,000 active-duty women are stationed in states with abortion restrictions or bans. That’s 40% of active-duty service women in the continental United States, according to research sponsored by the US Department of Defense (DoD) and released in September. Nearly all (95%) are of reproductive age. Annually, an estimated 2573 to 4126 women have an abortion, but just a handful of those are done at military treatment facilities. Moreover, roughly 275,000 DoD civilians also live in states with a full ban or extreme restrictions on access to abortion. Of those, more than 81,000 are women. Nearly 43% have no access to abortion or drastically abridged access.  

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization has created uncertainty for those women and their families, and potential legal and financial risk for the health care practitioners who would provide reproductive care, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in an October 20, 2022 memo.

Therefore, he has directed the DoD to take “all appropriate action… as soon as possible to ensure that our service members and their families can access reproductive health care and our health care providers can operate effectively.”

Among the actions he has approved: Paying for travel to reproductive health care—essentially, making it more feasible for members to cross state lines. Service members, he noted in the memo, are often required to travel or move to meet staffing, operational, and training requirements. The “practical effects,” he said, are that significant numbers of service members and their families “may be forced to travel greater distances, take more time off from work, and pay more out-of-pocket expenses to receive reproductive health care.” 

Those effects, Austin said, “qualify as unusual, extraordinary, hardship, or emergency circumstances for service members and their dependents and will interfere with our ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force.”

Women, who comprise 17% of the active-duty force, are the fastest-growing subpopulation in the military. For the past several years, according to the DoD research report, the military services have been “deliberately recruiting women”—who perform essential duties in every sector: health care and electrical and mechanical equipment repair, for example.

“The full effects of Dobbs on military readiness are yet to be known,” the report says, but it notes several potential problems: Women may not join the service knowing that they could end up in a state with restrictions. If already serving, they may leave. In some states, women face criminal prosecution.

The long arm of Dobbs reaches far into the future, too. For instance, if unintended pregnancies are carried to term, the DoD will need to provide care to women during pregnancy, delivery, and the postpartum period—and the family will need to care for the child. Looking only at women in states with restricted access or bans, the DoD estimates the number of unintended pregnancies annually would be 2800 among civilian employees and between 4400 and 4700 among active-duty service women.

Men are also directly affected: More than 40% of male service members are married to a civilian woman who is a TRICARE dependent, 20% of active-duty service women are married to a fellow service member, and active-duty service men might be responsible for pregnancies among women who are not DoD dependents but who might be unable to get an abortion, the DoD report notes.

Austin has directed the DoD to create a uniform policy that allows for appropriate administrative absence, to establish travel and transportation allowances, and to amend any applicable travel regulations to facilitate official travel to access noncovered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of the service member’s permanent duty station.

So that health care practitioners do not have to face criminal or civil liability or risk losing their licenses, Austin directed the DoD to develop a program to reimburse applicable fees, as appropriate and consistent with applicable federal law, for DoD health care practitioners who wish to become licensed in a state other than that in which they are currently licensed. He also directed the DoD to develop a program to support DoD practitioners who are subject to adverse action, including indemnification of any verdict, judgment, or other monetary award consistent with applicable law.

“Our greatest strength is our people,” Austin wrote. “There is no higher priority than taking care of our people, and ensuring their health and well-being.” He directed that the actions outlined in the memorandum “be executed as soon as possible.”

Some 80,000 active-duty women are stationed in states with abortion restrictions or bans. That’s 40% of active-duty service women in the continental United States, according to research sponsored by the US Department of Defense (DoD) and released in September. Nearly all (95%) are of reproductive age. Annually, an estimated 2573 to 4126 women have an abortion, but just a handful of those are done at military treatment facilities. Moreover, roughly 275,000 DoD civilians also live in states with a full ban or extreme restrictions on access to abortion. Of those, more than 81,000 are women. Nearly 43% have no access to abortion or drastically abridged access.  

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization has created uncertainty for those women and their families, and potential legal and financial risk for the health care practitioners who would provide reproductive care, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in an October 20, 2022 memo.

Therefore, he has directed the DoD to take “all appropriate action… as soon as possible to ensure that our service members and their families can access reproductive health care and our health care providers can operate effectively.”

Among the actions he has approved: Paying for travel to reproductive health care—essentially, making it more feasible for members to cross state lines. Service members, he noted in the memo, are often required to travel or move to meet staffing, operational, and training requirements. The “practical effects,” he said, are that significant numbers of service members and their families “may be forced to travel greater distances, take more time off from work, and pay more out-of-pocket expenses to receive reproductive health care.” 

Those effects, Austin said, “qualify as unusual, extraordinary, hardship, or emergency circumstances for service members and their dependents and will interfere with our ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force.”

Women, who comprise 17% of the active-duty force, are the fastest-growing subpopulation in the military. For the past several years, according to the DoD research report, the military services have been “deliberately recruiting women”—who perform essential duties in every sector: health care and electrical and mechanical equipment repair, for example.

“The full effects of Dobbs on military readiness are yet to be known,” the report says, but it notes several potential problems: Women may not join the service knowing that they could end up in a state with restrictions. If already serving, they may leave. In some states, women face criminal prosecution.

The long arm of Dobbs reaches far into the future, too. For instance, if unintended pregnancies are carried to term, the DoD will need to provide care to women during pregnancy, delivery, and the postpartum period—and the family will need to care for the child. Looking only at women in states with restricted access or bans, the DoD estimates the number of unintended pregnancies annually would be 2800 among civilian employees and between 4400 and 4700 among active-duty service women.

Men are also directly affected: More than 40% of male service members are married to a civilian woman who is a TRICARE dependent, 20% of active-duty service women are married to a fellow service member, and active-duty service men might be responsible for pregnancies among women who are not DoD dependents but who might be unable to get an abortion, the DoD report notes.

Austin has directed the DoD to create a uniform policy that allows for appropriate administrative absence, to establish travel and transportation allowances, and to amend any applicable travel regulations to facilitate official travel to access noncovered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of the service member’s permanent duty station.

So that health care practitioners do not have to face criminal or civil liability or risk losing their licenses, Austin directed the DoD to develop a program to reimburse applicable fees, as appropriate and consistent with applicable federal law, for DoD health care practitioners who wish to become licensed in a state other than that in which they are currently licensed. He also directed the DoD to develop a program to support DoD practitioners who are subject to adverse action, including indemnification of any verdict, judgment, or other monetary award consistent with applicable law.

“Our greatest strength is our people,” Austin wrote. “There is no higher priority than taking care of our people, and ensuring their health and well-being.” He directed that the actions outlined in the memorandum “be executed as soon as possible.”

Some 80,000 active-duty women are stationed in states with abortion restrictions or bans. That’s 40% of active-duty service women in the continental United States, according to research sponsored by the US Department of Defense (DoD) and released in September. Nearly all (95%) are of reproductive age. Annually, an estimated 2573 to 4126 women have an abortion, but just a handful of those are done at military treatment facilities. Moreover, roughly 275,000 DoD civilians also live in states with a full ban or extreme restrictions on access to abortion. Of those, more than 81,000 are women. Nearly 43% have no access to abortion or drastically abridged access.  

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization has created uncertainty for those women and their families, and potential legal and financial risk for the health care practitioners who would provide reproductive care, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in an October 20, 2022 memo.

Therefore, he has directed the DoD to take “all appropriate action… as soon as possible to ensure that our service members and their families can access reproductive health care and our health care providers can operate effectively.”

Among the actions he has approved: Paying for travel to reproductive health care—essentially, making it more feasible for members to cross state lines. Service members, he noted in the memo, are often required to travel or move to meet staffing, operational, and training requirements. The “practical effects,” he said, are that significant numbers of service members and their families “may be forced to travel greater distances, take more time off from work, and pay more out-of-pocket expenses to receive reproductive health care.” 

Those effects, Austin said, “qualify as unusual, extraordinary, hardship, or emergency circumstances for service members and their dependents and will interfere with our ability to recruit, retain, and maintain the readiness of a highly qualified force.”

Women, who comprise 17% of the active-duty force, are the fastest-growing subpopulation in the military. For the past several years, according to the DoD research report, the military services have been “deliberately recruiting women”—who perform essential duties in every sector: health care and electrical and mechanical equipment repair, for example.

“The full effects of Dobbs on military readiness are yet to be known,” the report says, but it notes several potential problems: Women may not join the service knowing that they could end up in a state with restrictions. If already serving, they may leave. In some states, women face criminal prosecution.

The long arm of Dobbs reaches far into the future, too. For instance, if unintended pregnancies are carried to term, the DoD will need to provide care to women during pregnancy, delivery, and the postpartum period—and the family will need to care for the child. Looking only at women in states with restricted access or bans, the DoD estimates the number of unintended pregnancies annually would be 2800 among civilian employees and between 4400 and 4700 among active-duty service women.

Men are also directly affected: More than 40% of male service members are married to a civilian woman who is a TRICARE dependent, 20% of active-duty service women are married to a fellow service member, and active-duty service men might be responsible for pregnancies among women who are not DoD dependents but who might be unable to get an abortion, the DoD report notes.

Austin has directed the DoD to create a uniform policy that allows for appropriate administrative absence, to establish travel and transportation allowances, and to amend any applicable travel regulations to facilitate official travel to access noncovered reproductive health care that is unavailable within the local area of the service member’s permanent duty station.

So that health care practitioners do not have to face criminal or civil liability or risk losing their licenses, Austin directed the DoD to develop a program to reimburse applicable fees, as appropriate and consistent with applicable federal law, for DoD health care practitioners who wish to become licensed in a state other than that in which they are currently licensed. He also directed the DoD to develop a program to support DoD practitioners who are subject to adverse action, including indemnification of any verdict, judgment, or other monetary award consistent with applicable law.

“Our greatest strength is our people,” Austin wrote. “There is no higher priority than taking care of our people, and ensuring their health and well-being.” He directed that the actions outlined in the memorandum “be executed as soon as possible.”

In an intensive push to fill acute workforce shortages, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is holding a “national onboarding surge event” the week of November 14. The goal is to get people who have already said yes to a job in the VA on that job more quickly. Every VA facility has been asked to submit a list of the highest-priority candidates, regardless of the position.

One of the most pressing reasons for getting more workers into the pipeline faster is that more and more veterans are entering VA care. As of October 1, tens of thousands of veterans will be eligible for VA health care, thanks to the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022 (PACT Act), passed in August, which expanded benefits for post-9/11 service members with illnesses due to toxic exposures.

Another reason is the need to fill the gaps left by attrition. In an October 19 press briefing, VA Undersecretary for Health Shereef Elnahal said the agency needs to hire about 52,000 employees per year just to keep up with the rate of health care professionals (HCPs) leaving the agency. At a September breakfast meeting with the Defense Writers Group, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said July 2022 marked the first month this year that the VA hired more nurses than it lost to retirement. He said the VA needs to hire 45,000 nurses over the next 3 years to keep up with attrition and growing demand for veteran care.

“We have to do a better job on hiring,” McDonough said. Streamlining the process is a major goal. Hiring rules loosened during the pandemic have since tightened back up. He pointed out that in many cases, the VA takes 90 to 100 days to onboard candidates and called the long-drawn-out process “being dragged through a bureaucratic morass.” During that time, he said, “They’re not being paid, they’re filling out paperwork… That’s disastrous.” In his press briefing, Elnahal said “we lose folks after we’ve made the selection” because the process is so long.

Moreover, the agency has a critical shortage not only of HCPs but the human resources professionals needed to fast-track the hirees’ progress. McDonough called it a “supply chain issue.” “We have the lowest ratio of human resource professionals per employee in the federal government by a long shot.” Partly, he said, because “a lot of our people end up hired away to other federal agencies.”

McDonough said the VA is also interested in transitioning more active-duty service members with in-demand skills, certifications, and talent into the VA workforce. “Cross-walking active duty into VA service much more aggressively,” he said, is another way to “grow that supply of ready, deployable, trained personnel.” The PACT Act gives the VA new incentives to entice workers, such as expanded recruitment, retention bonuses, and student loan repayment. The VA already provides training to about 1500 nurse and nurse residency programs across the VA, McDonough said but has plans for expanding to 5 times its current scope. He also addressed the question of a looming physician shortage: “Roughly 7 in 10 doctors in the United States will have had some portion of their training in a VA facility. We have to maintain that training function going forward.” The VA trains doctors, he added, “better than anybody else.”

The onboarding event will serve as a “national signal that we take this priority very seriously,” Elnahal said. “This will be not only a chance to have a step function improvement in the number of folks on board, which is an urgent priority, but to also set the groundwork for the more longitudinal work that we will need to do to improve the hiring process.”

Bulking up the workforce, he said, is “still far and away among our first priorities. Because if we don’t get our hospitals and facility staffed, it’s going to be a really hard effort to make process on the other priorities.”

In an intensive push to fill acute workforce shortages, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is holding a “national onboarding surge event” the week of November 14. The goal is to get people who have already said yes to a job in the VA on that job more quickly. Every VA facility has been asked to submit a list of the highest-priority candidates, regardless of the position.

One of the most pressing reasons for getting more workers into the pipeline faster is that more and more veterans are entering VA care. As of October 1, tens of thousands of veterans will be eligible for VA health care, thanks to the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022 (PACT Act), passed in August, which expanded benefits for post-9/11 service members with illnesses due to toxic exposures.

Another reason is the need to fill the gaps left by attrition. In an October 19 press briefing, VA Undersecretary for Health Shereef Elnahal said the agency needs to hire about 52,000 employees per year just to keep up with the rate of health care professionals (HCPs) leaving the agency. At a September breakfast meeting with the Defense Writers Group, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said July 2022 marked the first month this year that the VA hired more nurses than it lost to retirement. He said the VA needs to hire 45,000 nurses over the next 3 years to keep up with attrition and growing demand for veteran care.

“We have to do a better job on hiring,” McDonough said. Streamlining the process is a major goal. Hiring rules loosened during the pandemic have since tightened back up. He pointed out that in many cases, the VA takes 90 to 100 days to onboard candidates and called the long-drawn-out process “being dragged through a bureaucratic morass.” During that time, he said, “They’re not being paid, they’re filling out paperwork… That’s disastrous.” In his press briefing, Elnahal said “we lose folks after we’ve made the selection” because the process is so long.

Moreover, the agency has a critical shortage not only of HCPs but the human resources professionals needed to fast-track the hirees’ progress. McDonough called it a “supply chain issue.” “We have the lowest ratio of human resource professionals per employee in the federal government by a long shot.” Partly, he said, because “a lot of our people end up hired away to other federal agencies.”

McDonough said the VA is also interested in transitioning more active-duty service members with in-demand skills, certifications, and talent into the VA workforce. “Cross-walking active duty into VA service much more aggressively,” he said, is another way to “grow that supply of ready, deployable, trained personnel.” The PACT Act gives the VA new incentives to entice workers, such as expanded recruitment, retention bonuses, and student loan repayment. The VA already provides training to about 1500 nurse and nurse residency programs across the VA, McDonough said but has plans for expanding to 5 times its current scope. He also addressed the question of a looming physician shortage: “Roughly 7 in 10 doctors in the United States will have had some portion of their training in a VA facility. We have to maintain that training function going forward.” The VA trains doctors, he added, “better than anybody else.”

The onboarding event will serve as a “national signal that we take this priority very seriously,” Elnahal said. “This will be not only a chance to have a step function improvement in the number of folks on board, which is an urgent priority, but to also set the groundwork for the more longitudinal work that we will need to do to improve the hiring process.”

Bulking up the workforce, he said, is “still far and away among our first priorities. Because if we don’t get our hospitals and facility staffed, it’s going to be a really hard effort to make process on the other priorities.”

In an intensive push to fill acute workforce shortages, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is holding a “national onboarding surge event” the week of November 14. The goal is to get people who have already said yes to a job in the VA on that job more quickly. Every VA facility has been asked to submit a list of the highest-priority candidates, regardless of the position.

One of the most pressing reasons for getting more workers into the pipeline faster is that more and more veterans are entering VA care. As of October 1, tens of thousands of veterans will be eligible for VA health care, thanks to the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of 2022 (PACT Act), passed in August, which expanded benefits for post-9/11 service members with illnesses due to toxic exposures.

Another reason is the need to fill the gaps left by attrition. In an October 19 press briefing, VA Undersecretary for Health Shereef Elnahal said the agency needs to hire about 52,000 employees per year just to keep up with the rate of health care professionals (HCPs) leaving the agency. At a September breakfast meeting with the Defense Writers Group, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said July 2022 marked the first month this year that the VA hired more nurses than it lost to retirement. He said the VA needs to hire 45,000 nurses over the next 3 years to keep up with attrition and growing demand for veteran care.

“We have to do a better job on hiring,” McDonough said. Streamlining the process is a major goal. Hiring rules loosened during the pandemic have since tightened back up. He pointed out that in many cases, the VA takes 90 to 100 days to onboard candidates and called the long-drawn-out process “being dragged through a bureaucratic morass.” During that time, he said, “They’re not being paid, they’re filling out paperwork… That’s disastrous.” In his press briefing, Elnahal said “we lose folks after we’ve made the selection” because the process is so long.

Moreover, the agency has a critical shortage not only of HCPs but the human resources professionals needed to fast-track the hirees’ progress. McDonough called it a “supply chain issue.” “We have the lowest ratio of human resource professionals per employee in the federal government by a long shot.” Partly, he said, because “a lot of our people end up hired away to other federal agencies.”

McDonough said the VA is also interested in transitioning more active-duty service members with in-demand skills, certifications, and talent into the VA workforce. “Cross-walking active duty into VA service much more aggressively,” he said, is another way to “grow that supply of ready, deployable, trained personnel.” The PACT Act gives the VA new incentives to entice workers, such as expanded recruitment, retention bonuses, and student loan repayment. The VA already provides training to about 1500 nurse and nurse residency programs across the VA, McDonough said but has plans for expanding to 5 times its current scope. He also addressed the question of a looming physician shortage: “Roughly 7 in 10 doctors in the United States will have had some portion of their training in a VA facility. We have to maintain that training function going forward.” The VA trains doctors, he added, “better than anybody else.”

The onboarding event will serve as a “national signal that we take this priority very seriously,” Elnahal said. “This will be not only a chance to have a step function improvement in the number of folks on board, which is an urgent priority, but to also set the groundwork for the more longitudinal work that we will need to do to improve the hiring process.”

Bulking up the workforce, he said, is “still far and away among our first priorities. Because if we don’t get our hospitals and facility staffed, it’s going to be a really hard effort to make process on the other priorities.”

For years, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has painstakingly labored to track, research, and address veteran suicide. Their exceptional work was dealt an unwarranted blow a month ago with the publication of an incomplete report entitled Operation Deep Dive (OpDD). The $3.9 million study from America’s Warrior Partnership (AWP) examined death data of former service members in 8 states between 2014 and 2018. The interim report criticized the VA for minimizing the extent of veteran suicide, asserting, “former service members take their own lives each year at a rate approximately 2.4 times greater than previously reported by the VA.”

The sensational results were accepted at face value and immediately garnered negative nationwide headlines, with lawmakers, media outlets, and veterans rushing to impugn the VA. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Ranking Republican Member Jerry Moran of Kansas opined, “The disparity between the numbers of veteran suicides reported by the VA and [OpDD] is concerning. We need an honest assessment of the scope of the problem.” A U.S. Medicine headline stated “VA undercounted thousands of veteran suicides. [OpDD] posited daily suicide rate is 240% higher.” Fox News declared, “Veterans committing suicide at rate 2 times higher than VA data show: study,” as did Military Times, “Veterans suicide rate may be double federal estimates, study suggests.”

Disturbingly, those who echoed AWP’s claims got the story backward. It’s AWP, not VA, whose suicide data and conclusions are faulty.

For starters, the VA data encompasses veterans across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. In contrast, AWP inferred national veteran suicide figures based on partial, skewed data. As delineated by researchers in an in-press Military Medicine letter to the Editor, 7 of the 8 states sampled (Alabama, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, and Oregon) had suicide rates above the national average for the years under investigation. This factor alone overinflates AWP’s purported suicide numbers.

Additionally, AWP altered the definition of “taking one’s life” and then misapplied that designation. Conventionally, the term refers to suicide, but AWP used it to also include nonnatural deaths assessed by coroners and medical examiners as accidental or undetermined. Two examples of this self-injury mortality (SIM) are opioid overdoses and single-driver car crash deaths. AWP added suicides and SIMs to derive a total number of veterans who took their life and falsely contrasted that aggregate against the VA count of suicides. That’s like comparing the whole category of fruit to the subcategory of apples.

AWP should be applauded for drawing attention to and accounting for accidental and undetermined deaths. However, the standard protocol is to consider SIMs distinctly from suicides. Among the many reasons for precise labeling is so that grieving family members aren’t mistakenly informed that their loved one died by suicide. VA conveys the rate of veteran overdose deaths in separate reports, for example, the Veteran Drug Overdose Mortality, 2010-2019 publication. Those numbers were ignored in AWP’s calculations.

AWP was neglectful in another way. The second phase of the project—a deep examination of community-level factors preceding suicides and nonnatural deaths—began in 2019. This information was collected and analyzed through sociocultural death investigation (SDI) interviews of 3 to 4 family members, friends, and colleagues of the deceased. SDIs consisted of 19 factors, such as history of the veteran’s mental health problems, social connectedness, finances, group memberships, and access to firearms. However, the interim report omitted the preliminary analysis of these factors, which AWP stated would be made available this year.

OpDD conclusions were so unfounded that AWP’s analytic research partner, the University of Alabama, distanced itself from the interim report. “We were not consulted on the released figures,” Dr. Karl Hamner, the University of Alabama principal investigator on the study, told me. “We did not make any conclusions and we don’t endorse the reported findings about national rates or numbers per day. Nor did we make any statements about the VA’s data.”

As it happens, the VA’s 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report was issued the same week as the OpDD report. VA found that veteran suicides decreased by 9.7% over the last 2 years, nearly twice the decrease for nonveterans. Yet, in a contemporaneous hearing of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, AWP’s President and CEO Jim Lorraine testified that the progress preventing veteran suicide was “a disgrace” and “a failure.” He misattributed that it was VA (not AWP) that “must be more open and transparent about their data.”

Unsupported denigration of the VA tarnishes its reputation, undermining veterans’ trust in the health care system and increasing barriers to seeking needed services. More broadly, it fortifies those forces who wish to redirect allocations away from VA and towards non-VA veterans’ entities like AWP. The media and other stakeholders must take a lesson about getting the story straight before reflexively amplifying false accusations about the VA. Veterans deserve better.

For years, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has painstakingly labored to track, research, and address veteran suicide. Their exceptional work was dealt an unwarranted blow a month ago with the publication of an incomplete report entitled Operation Deep Dive (OpDD). The $3.9 million study from America’s Warrior Partnership (AWP) examined death data of former service members in 8 states between 2014 and 2018. The interim report criticized the VA for minimizing the extent of veteran suicide, asserting, “former service members take their own lives each year at a rate approximately 2.4 times greater than previously reported by the VA.”

The sensational results were accepted at face value and immediately garnered negative nationwide headlines, with lawmakers, media outlets, and veterans rushing to impugn the VA. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Ranking Republican Member Jerry Moran of Kansas opined, “The disparity between the numbers of veteran suicides reported by the VA and [OpDD] is concerning. We need an honest assessment of the scope of the problem.” A U.S. Medicine headline stated “VA undercounted thousands of veteran suicides. [OpDD] posited daily suicide rate is 240% higher.” Fox News declared, “Veterans committing suicide at rate 2 times higher than VA data show: study,” as did Military Times, “Veterans suicide rate may be double federal estimates, study suggests.”

Disturbingly, those who echoed AWP’s claims got the story backward. It’s AWP, not VA, whose suicide data and conclusions are faulty.

For starters, the VA data encompasses veterans across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. In contrast, AWP inferred national veteran suicide figures based on partial, skewed data. As delineated by researchers in an in-press Military Medicine letter to the Editor, 7 of the 8 states sampled (Alabama, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, and Oregon) had suicide rates above the national average for the years under investigation. This factor alone overinflates AWP’s purported suicide numbers.

Additionally, AWP altered the definition of “taking one’s life” and then misapplied that designation. Conventionally, the term refers to suicide, but AWP used it to also include nonnatural deaths assessed by coroners and medical examiners as accidental or undetermined. Two examples of this self-injury mortality (SIM) are opioid overdoses and single-driver car crash deaths. AWP added suicides and SIMs to derive a total number of veterans who took their life and falsely contrasted that aggregate against the VA count of suicides. That’s like comparing the whole category of fruit to the subcategory of apples.

AWP should be applauded for drawing attention to and accounting for accidental and undetermined deaths. However, the standard protocol is to consider SIMs distinctly from suicides. Among the many reasons for precise labeling is so that grieving family members aren’t mistakenly informed that their loved one died by suicide. VA conveys the rate of veteran overdose deaths in separate reports, for example, the Veteran Drug Overdose Mortality, 2010-2019 publication. Those numbers were ignored in AWP’s calculations.

AWP was neglectful in another way. The second phase of the project—a deep examination of community-level factors preceding suicides and nonnatural deaths—began in 2019. This information was collected and analyzed through sociocultural death investigation (SDI) interviews of 3 to 4 family members, friends, and colleagues of the deceased. SDIs consisted of 19 factors, such as history of the veteran’s mental health problems, social connectedness, finances, group memberships, and access to firearms. However, the interim report omitted the preliminary analysis of these factors, which AWP stated would be made available this year.

OpDD conclusions were so unfounded that AWP’s analytic research partner, the University of Alabama, distanced itself from the interim report. “We were not consulted on the released figures,” Dr. Karl Hamner, the University of Alabama principal investigator on the study, told me. “We did not make any conclusions and we don’t endorse the reported findings about national rates or numbers per day. Nor did we make any statements about the VA’s data.”

As it happens, the VA’s 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report was issued the same week as the OpDD report. VA found that veteran suicides decreased by 9.7% over the last 2 years, nearly twice the decrease for nonveterans. Yet, in a contemporaneous hearing of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, AWP’s President and CEO Jim Lorraine testified that the progress preventing veteran suicide was “a disgrace” and “a failure.” He misattributed that it was VA (not AWP) that “must be more open and transparent about their data.”

Unsupported denigration of the VA tarnishes its reputation, undermining veterans’ trust in the health care system and increasing barriers to seeking needed services. More broadly, it fortifies those forces who wish to redirect allocations away from VA and towards non-VA veterans’ entities like AWP. The media and other stakeholders must take a lesson about getting the story straight before reflexively amplifying false accusations about the VA. Veterans deserve better.

For years, the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has painstakingly labored to track, research, and address veteran suicide. Their exceptional work was dealt an unwarranted blow a month ago with the publication of an incomplete report entitled Operation Deep Dive (OpDD). The $3.9 million study from America’s Warrior Partnership (AWP) examined death data of former service members in 8 states between 2014 and 2018. The interim report criticized the VA for minimizing the extent of veteran suicide, asserting, “former service members take their own lives each year at a rate approximately 2.4 times greater than previously reported by the VA.”

The sensational results were accepted at face value and immediately garnered negative nationwide headlines, with lawmakers, media outlets, and veterans rushing to impugn the VA. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Ranking Republican Member Jerry Moran of Kansas opined, “The disparity between the numbers of veteran suicides reported by the VA and [OpDD] is concerning. We need an honest assessment of the scope of the problem.” A U.S. Medicine headline stated “VA undercounted thousands of veteran suicides. [OpDD] posited daily suicide rate is 240% higher.” Fox News declared, “Veterans committing suicide at rate 2 times higher than VA data show: study,” as did Military Times, “Veterans suicide rate may be double federal estimates, study suggests.”

Disturbingly, those who echoed AWP’s claims got the story backward. It’s AWP, not VA, whose suicide data and conclusions are faulty.

For starters, the VA data encompasses veterans across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. In contrast, AWP inferred national veteran suicide figures based on partial, skewed data. As delineated by researchers in an in-press Military Medicine letter to the Editor, 7 of the 8 states sampled (Alabama, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, and Oregon) had suicide rates above the national average for the years under investigation. This factor alone overinflates AWP’s purported suicide numbers.

Additionally, AWP altered the definition of “taking one’s life” and then misapplied that designation. Conventionally, the term refers to suicide, but AWP used it to also include nonnatural deaths assessed by coroners and medical examiners as accidental or undetermined. Two examples of this self-injury mortality (SIM) are opioid overdoses and single-driver car crash deaths. AWP added suicides and SIMs to derive a total number of veterans who took their life and falsely contrasted that aggregate against the VA count of suicides. That’s like comparing the whole category of fruit to the subcategory of apples.

AWP should be applauded for drawing attention to and accounting for accidental and undetermined deaths. However, the standard protocol is to consider SIMs distinctly from suicides. Among the many reasons for precise labeling is so that grieving family members aren’t mistakenly informed that their loved one died by suicide. VA conveys the rate of veteran overdose deaths in separate reports, for example, the Veteran Drug Overdose Mortality, 2010-2019 publication. Those numbers were ignored in AWP’s calculations.

AWP was neglectful in another way. The second phase of the project—a deep examination of community-level factors preceding suicides and nonnatural deaths—began in 2019. This information was collected and analyzed through sociocultural death investigation (SDI) interviews of 3 to 4 family members, friends, and colleagues of the deceased. SDIs consisted of 19 factors, such as history of the veteran’s mental health problems, social connectedness, finances, group memberships, and access to firearms. However, the interim report omitted the preliminary analysis of these factors, which AWP stated would be made available this year.

OpDD conclusions were so unfounded that AWP’s analytic research partner, the University of Alabama, distanced itself from the interim report. “We were not consulted on the released figures,” Dr. Karl Hamner, the University of Alabama principal investigator on the study, told me. “We did not make any conclusions and we don’t endorse the reported findings about national rates or numbers per day. Nor did we make any statements about the VA’s data.”

As it happens, the VA’s 2022 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report was issued the same week as the OpDD report. VA found that veteran suicides decreased by 9.7% over the last 2 years, nearly twice the decrease for nonveterans. Yet, in a contemporaneous hearing of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, AWP’s President and CEO Jim Lorraine testified that the progress preventing veteran suicide was “a disgrace” and “a failure.” He misattributed that it was VA (not AWP) that “must be more open and transparent about their data.”

Unsupported denigration of the VA tarnishes its reputation, undermining veterans’ trust in the health care system and increasing barriers to seeking needed services. More broadly, it fortifies those forces who wish to redirect allocations away from VA and towards non-VA veterans’ entities like AWP. The media and other stakeholders must take a lesson about getting the story straight before reflexively amplifying false accusations about the VA. Veterans deserve better.