Hypertension (HTN) control in Blacks is sub-optimal due to barriers at the patient, health systems, provider, and community-levels of care. Although the efficacy of nurse case management (NCM) and home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) is well-proven; these strategies do not address community-level barriers (unstable housing, transportation) to adequate HTN control, thus limiting their impact in Blacks. Integration of community health worker (CHWs) into primary care to help patients navigate community resources is effective for HTN control in patients experiencing community-level barriers. Despite their efficacy, implementation of these multi-level evidence-based interventions (NCM, HBPM, and use of CHWs) into routine care in real world primary care practices, where a majority of minority patients receive care, is suboptimal. This proposal harnesses practice facilitation (PF)- a theoretically sound and sustainable implementation strategy to evaluate the implementation of NCM, HBPM, and CHWs delivered as an integrated community-clinic linkage model [Practice support And Community Engagement (PACE)] to address patient-, physician-, health system-, and community-level barriers to HTN control in Blacks. We will test the implementation of PACE across a network of 20 primary practices within NYU Langone Health in NYC, in partnership with an established Community-Clinic-Academic Advisory Board and HealthFirst (NYC's largest Medicaid payer). Practice facilitators will assist practices to integrate NCM and HBPM into the clinic workflow for 6 months, after which the patients' BP control status are re-evaluated; and for those who remain uncontrolled, the facilitators will assist practices to develop processes for the addition of a CHW to the care team to help patients navigate community resources and address community-level barriers to optimal HTN control. NCM comprises home BP telemonitoring, behavioral counseling, and medication adjustment/titration by trained Nurses. Trained CHWs work in partnership with Nurses to enhance care coordination, and provide health coaching and bi-directional referrals between the practices and community resources. We will conduct the proposed study in two phases: 1) a UG3 phase that will use principles of Community-Based Participatory Research and the Consolidated Framework of Implementation Research to develop a context-specific PF strategy and; 2) a UH3 implementation phase that will use Proctor's Implementation Outcomes Framework to evaluate, in a stepped-wedge cluster RCT of 20 primary care practices in 500 Black patients with uncontrolled HTN, the effect of the PF strategy on clinical and cost-effectiveness of PACE. We will also examine adoption and implementation fidelity as potential mechanisms that may explain the impact of PF on BP control. Primary outcome is BP control from baseline to 18 months. Secondary outcome is cost-effectiveness of PACE. The study's findings will provide a practical and sustainable system that harnesses existing clinical and community resources to build capacity for primary care practices to manage HTN control in minority populations.
Hypertension (HTN) accounts for the greatest portion of racial disparities in mortality between blacks and whites, and despite the proven benefits of optimal HTN treatment, too few Black patients achieve optimal blood pressure (BP) control due to barriers at the patient, physician, health systems, and community- levels of care. This application provides a unique opportunity to address this public health challenge by using practice facilitation as a practical and sustainable implementation strategy to support the implementation and evaluation of three multi-level evidence-based interventions (nurse case management, home BP monitoring, and use of Community Health Workers) delivered as an integrated community-clinic linkage model [Practice support And Community Engagement (PACE) across 20 primary practices within NYU Langone Health in NYC and, in partnership with an established Community-Clinic-Academic Advisory Board and HealthFirst (NYC's largest Medicaid payer). The study's findings will provide a practical and sustainable system of hypertension management that harnesses existing clinical and community resources to build capacity for primary care practices to effectively address poor hypertension control in vulnerable populations.
