OABI Letter

DEPARTMENT OF Memorandum

VETERANS AFFAIRS

Date: June 17, 2016

From: Dr. Gordon Schectman (10P4F)

Subj: Interconnected Factors That Influence Health, Experiences and Needs (IF-THEN) Study

To: Matthew L. Maciejewski

1. The purpose of this letter is to confirm that the project entitled, "Interconnected Factors That Influence Health, Experiences And Needs Study," at the Durham VA Medical Center, led by Matthew L. Maciejewski, will conduct an operations project designed to inform quality improvement efforts, as part of the PACT Demonstration Laboratory Initiative funded by the Office Of Primary Care Services.

2. The purpose of this project is to support internal evaluation efforts. This activity is specifically designed to inform the Office Of Primary Care Services regarding comparing claims-based patient characteristics (demographics, diagnosed comorbidities) between survey respondents and non-respondents; understanding whether covariate enrichment with survey data improves our ability to predict 90-day hospital admission; and understanding whether there are specific subgroups that can be identified with linked survey and claims data.

This project will be collecting information that is designed for quality improvement initiatives and/or program evaluation, as described in VHA Handbook 1058.05. The project will use secondary and primary VA data collected for evaluation purposes using assessments that are part of routine care. The primary data to be collected in this study represents some of the same constructs that VA providers ask Veterans about in routine clinical care every day to understand their needs and why they may or may not be following clinical recommendations.  We are formalizing this measurement systematically through this survey.

3. The activities of this project are designed for internal VA purposes and findings are intended to be used within the VA. This evaluation is not designed to inform activities beyond VA, produce information that expands the knowledge base of a scientific discipline or other scholarly field, and does not involve collecting additional data or performing additional analyses that are not needed for the purposes of this internal evaluation.

Gordon Schectman, MD

Chief Consultant, Primary Care Services