Contextual Assessments for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Transition of Care Bundle Implementation Planning...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects more than 16 million US adults, many of whom experience high rates of acute care revisits (emergency department and hospital) after initial hospitalization. These frequent exacerbations, often due to failures in transitions of care (TOC), lead to lung function decline and premature mortality. While effective interventions exist to reduce readmissions, wide-scale implementation of COPD TOC programs remains limited. The National Institutes of Health-funded Reducing Respiratory Emergency Visits Using Implementation Science Interventions Tailored to Settings (REVISITS) study was designed to address this implementation gap by developing and implementing bundled COPD TOC programs across diverse US hospitals.

This study aimed to conduct pre-implementation contextual assessments at US hospitals to guide the development of site-specific, evidence-based COPD TOC programs.

We conducted pre-implementation contextual assessments using a novel semi-structured interview format that integrated the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) with human-centered design approaches (ethnographic interviewing) to capture real-world experiences of COPD care across inpatient, outpatient, and home settings. We used a sequential explanatory mixed methods design in which pre-interview survey data completed by site leads informed and shaped the subsequent semi-structured interviews. Site leads, clinicians, organizational leaders, patients, and caregivers were interviewed. Interviews explored baseline COPD TOC practices, local resources, opportunities for improvement, as well as participant priorities from a menu of 12 evidence-based interventions (eg, pulmonary rehabilitation, patient navigation, and inhaler teaching). Rapid analysis methods identified intervention priorities across participant groups, along with perceived barriers and facilitators to implementation. Findings were shared with site leads to help guide their development of tailored COPD TOC programs.

Among 194 participants from 21 sites (42 site leads, 29 organizational leaders, 105 clinicians, and 18 patients or caregivers), the highest priority interventions identified during interviews were post-emergency department follow-up visits, education (inhaler technique, disease management, and action plan), and pulmonary rehabilitation. Reported barriers included clinician-level challenges (limited training, staffing, and time), patient-level challenges (social needs and physical burden of COPD), and system-level challenges (lack of standardization, limited resources, and cost). Key facilitators included the presence of dedicated staff and the availability of pre-existing programs or infrastructure. The 3 most commonly chosen interventions for implementation were patient education (eg, inhaler education and COPD action plans), medication reconciliation, and post-discharge care (eg, post-discharge visits and pulmonary rehabilitation).

This study demonstrates how the integration of implementation science and human-centered design approaches can yield valuable insights, beyond what either field could obtain separately, during the pre-implementation phase of COPD TOC program implementation development. Contextual assessments that capture diverse views are instrumental in designing feasible and relevant interventions. Future work will explore how pre-implementation insights relate to post-implementation outcomes across participating sites.