Characteristics of Veterans With Non-VA Encounters Enrolled in a Trial of Standards-Based, Interoperable Event Notification and Care Coordination.

Introduction: Understanding how veterans use Veterans Affairs (VA) for primary care and non-VA for acute care can help policy makers predict future health care resource use. We aimed to describe characteristics of veterans enrolled in a multisite clinical trial of non-VA acute event notifications and care coordination and to identify patient factors associated with non-VA acute care.

Methods: Characteristics of 565 veterans enrolled in a prospective cluster randomized trial at the Bronx and Indianapolis VA Medical Centers were obtained by interview and chart review.