Background The effect of interdisciplinary primary care teams on the use of health services by patients with multiple chronic conditions is uncertain. This study aimed to measure the effect of guided care teams on multimorbid older patients’ use of health services. Methods Eligible patients from 3 health care systems in the Baltimore, Maryland–Washington, DC, area were cluster-randomized to receive guided care or usual care for 20 months between November 1, 2006, and June 30, 2008. Eight services of a guided care nurse working in partnership with patients’ primary care physicians were provided: comprehensive assessment, evidence-based care planning, monthly monitoring of symptoms and adherence, transitional care, coordination of health care professionals, support for self-management, support for family caregivers, and enhanced access to community services. Outcome measures were frequency of use of emergency departments, hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, primary care physician services, and specialty physician services. Results The study included 850 older patients at high risk for using health care heavily in the future. The only statistically significant overall effect of guided care in the whole sample was a reduction in episodes of home health care (odds ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence interval, 0.53–0.93). In a preplanned analysis, guided care also reduced skilled nursing facility admissions (odds ratio, 0.53; 95% confidence interval,0.31–0.89) and days (0.48; 0.28–0.84) among Kaiser-Permanente patients. Conclusions Guided care reduces the use of home health care but has little effect on the use of other health services in the short run. Its positive effect on Kaiser-Permanente patients’ use of skilled nursing facilities and other health services is intriguing. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00121940

BACKGROUND: Patients at risk for generating high health care expenditures often receive fragmented, lowquality, inefficient health care. Guided Care is designed to provide proactive, coordinated, comprehensive care for such patients. OBJECTIVE: We hypothesized that Guided Care, compared to usual care, produces better functional health and quality of care, while reducing the use of expensive health services. DESIGN: 32-month, single-blind, matched-pair, cluster-randomized controlled trial of Guided Care, conducted in eight community-based primary care practices. PATIENTS: The "Hierarchical Condition Category" (HCC) predictive model was used to identify high-risk older patients who were insured by fee-for-service Medicare, a Medicare Advantage plan or Tricare. Patients with HCC scores in the highest quartile (at risk for generating high health care expenditures during the coming year) were eligible to participate. INTERVENTION: A registered nurse collaborated with two to five primary care physicians in providing eight services to participants: comprehensive assessment, evidence-based care planning, proactive monitoring, care coordination, transitional care, coaching for selfmanagement, caregiver support, and access to community-based services. MAIN MEASURES: Functional health was measured using the Short Form-36. Quality of care and health services utilization were measured using the Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care and health insurance claims, respectively. KEY RESULTS: Of the eligible patients, 904 (37.8 %) gave written consent to participate; of these, 477 (52.8 %) completed the final interview, and 848 (93.8 %) provided complete claims data. In intention-to-treat analyses, Guided Care did not significantly improve participants' functional health, but it was associated with significantly higher participant ratings of the quality of care (difference=0.27, 95 % CI=0.08-0.45) and 29 % lower use of home care (95 % CI=3-48 %). CONCLUSIONS: Guided Care improves high-risk older patients' ratings of the quality of their care, and it reduces their use of home care, but it does not appear to improve their functional health.

OBJECTIVES To examine mobility device use prevalence among community-dwelling older adults in the U.S. and to investigate the incidence of falls and worry about falling by the type and number of mobility devices used. DESIGN Analysis of cross-sectional and longitudinal data from the 2011–2012 National Health and Aging Trends Study SETTING In-person interviews in the homes of study participants PARTICIPANTS Nationally representative sample of Medicare beneficiaries(N=7609). MEASUREMENTS Participants were asked about mobility device use (e.g., canes, walkers, wheelchairs and scooters) in the last month, one-year fall history and worry about falling. RESULTS Twenty-four percent of adults age ≥65 reported mobility device use in 2011 and 9.3% reported using multiple devices within the last month. Mobility device use increased with advancing age and was associated with non-White race/ethnicity, female sex, lower education level, greater multi-morbidity, and obesity (all P-values < 0.001). Adjusting for demographic, health characteristics, and physical function, the incidence of falls and recurrent falls were not associated with the use of multiple devices or any one particular type of mobility device. Activity-limiting worry about falling was significantly higher in cane-only users, compared with non-users. CONCLUSION The percentage of older adults reporting mobility device use is higher compared to results from previous national surveys and multiple device use is common among those who use any device. Mobility device use is not associated with increased incidence of falls compared to non-device users. Cane-only users may compensate for worry about falling by limiting activity.

Health reform promotes the delivery of patient-centered care. Occupational therapy's rich history of client-centered theory and practice provides an opportunity for the profession to participate in the evolving discussion about how best to provide care that is truly patient centered. However, the growing emphasis on patient-centered care also poses challenges to occupational therapy's perspectives on client-centered care. We compare the conceptualizations of client-centered and patient-centered care and describe the current state of measurement of client-centered and patient-centered care. We then discuss implications for occupational therapy's research agenda, practice, and education within the context of patient-centered care, and propose next steps for the profession.

IntroductionAmbulatory practices that actively partner with patients and families in quality improvement (QI) report benefits such as better patient/family interactions with physicians and staff, and patient empowerment. However, creating effective patient/family partnerships for ambulatory care improvement is not yet routine. The objective of this paper is to provide practices with concrete evidence about meaningfully involving patients and families in QI activities.MethodsReview of literature published from 2000–2015 and a focus group conducted in 2014 with practice advisors.ResultsThirty articles discussed 26 studies or examples of patient/family partnerships in ambulatory care QI. Patient and family partnership mechanisms included QI committees and advisory councils. Facilitators included process transparency, mechanisms for acting on patient/family input, and compensation. Challenges for practices included uncertainty about how best to involve patients and families in QI. Several studies found that patient/family partnership was a catalyst for improvement and reported that partnerships resulted in process improvements. Focus group results were concordant.ConclusionThis paper describes emergent mechanisms and processes that ambulatory care practices use to partner with patients and families in QI including outcomes, facilitators, and challenges.FundingGordon and Betty Moore Foundation.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12325-016-0364-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.