Advancing Integrated Care through Practice Coaching.

Introduction: Practice coaches are skilled consultants who work in health care service delivery systems to make changes designed to improve patient outcomes, yet research is limited regarding their use to support integrated health care. This article describes the use of practice coaches in a large-scale effort to implement integrated care in the United States for patients with complex care needs.

Theory And Methods: This immersive, qualitative project involved five implementation team members; eight practice coaches; and 77 staff members from 12 health care organizations.

Evaluation Of The Behavioral Health Integration And Complex Care Initiative In Medi-Cal.

This article reports how a large Medi-Cal managed care plan addressed challenges in accessing health care for approximately 7,000 enrollees with multiple chronic conditions through a project known as the Behavioral Health Integration and Complex Care Initiative. The initiative increased staffing for care management, care coordination, and behavioral health integration. In our evaluation of the initiative, we demonstrated that participation in it was associated with improved clinical indicators for common chronic conditions, reduced inpatient costs in some sites, and improved patient experience in all sites.