Expanding Home-Based Primary Care to American Indian Reservations and Other Rural Communities: An Observational Study

Home-based primary care (HBPC) is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary program to meet the medical needs of community-dwelling populations needing long-term care (LTC). The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) expanded its HBPC program to underserved rural communities, including American Indian reservations, providing a "natural laboratory" to study change in access to VA LTC benefits and utilization outcomes for rural populations that typically face challenges in accessing LTC medical support.

Pretest-Posttest quasi-experimental approach with interrupted time-series design using linked VA, Medicare, and Indian Health Service (IHS) records.

American Indian reservations and non-Indian communities in rural HBPC catchment areas.

376 veterans (88 IHS beneficiaries, 288 non-IHS beneficiaries) with a HBPC length of stay of 12 months or longer.

Baseline demographic and health characteristics, activities of daily living (ADL), previous VA enrollment, and hospital admissions and emergency department (ED) visits as a function of time, accounting for IHS beneficiary and functional statuses.

For HBPC users, VA enrollment increased by 22%. At baseline, 30% of IHS and non-IHS beneficiaries had 2 or more ADLs impairments; IHS populations were younger (P < .001) and had more diagnosed chronic diseases (P = .007). Overall, hospital admissions decreased by 0.10 (95% confidence interval (CI) = -0.14 to -0.05) and ED visits decreased by 0.13 (95% CI = -0.19 to -0.07) in the 90 days after HBPC admission (Ps < .001) and these decreases were maintained over 1 year follow-up. Before HBPC, probability of hospital admission was 12% lower for IHS than non-IHS beneficiaries (P = .02).

Introducing HBPC to rural areas increased access to LTC and enrollment for healthcare benefits, with equitable outcomes in IHS and non-IHS populations.