A comparison of patient-reported mental health outcomes for the Department of Veterans Affairs' regional telehealth and Community Care Programs

To compare patient-reported outcomes for veterans with limited access to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) mental health services referred to the Veterans Community Care Program (VCCP) or regional telehealth Clinical Resource Hubs-Mental Health (CRH-MH).This national evaluation used secondary data from the VA Corporate Data Warehouse, chart review, and primary data collected by baseline survey between October 8, 2019 and May 27, 2020 and a 4-month follow-up survey.A quasi-experimental longitudinal study design was used to sample 545 veterans with VCCP or CRH-MH referrals for new treatment episodes. Patient-reported outcomes included symptom severity, perceived access, utilization, and patient-centeredness.During the baseline and follow-up surveys, all veterans were administered the Patient Health Questionnaire-8 (PHQ-8) to assess depression severity, and veterans with a provisional diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were also administered the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) to assess PTSD symptom severity. The 4-month follow-up survey also asked about perceived access using the Perceived Access Inventory, the number of encounters, and patient-centeredness of care using the Patient-Centered Care portion of the Veterans Satisfaction Survey.Results indicated that compared to VCCP consults, veterans with CRH-MH consults reported 0.65 (CIOverall findings indicate that the CRH-MH and VCCP generate similar patient-reported outcomes. Future research should compare the quality and cost of care delivered by the VCCP and CRH-MH programs.