Implementation of Communication Disability Collection and Accommodations in Primary Care Settings

The Americans with Disability Act (ADA) requires that healthcare organizations and providers ensure that patients with disabilities receive equal access to healthcare services, facilities and programs. While the ADA was passed more than 30 years ago, research demonstrates that persons with disabilities continue to experience significant health and healthcare disparities. Persons with communication disabilities, who represent >14% of the US population, experience specific challenges to patient-centered communication, an essential component of high-quality care as outlined by the National Academy of Medicine report “Crossing the Quality Chasm”. Documentation of patients’ demographic information and social data (e.g., Social Determinants of Health) in electronic health records (EHR) has been recognized by healthcare organizations, policy makers and advocates as a necessary step towards alleviating healthcare disparities. Unfortunately, most healthcare organizations do not consistently or comprehensively document patients’ disability status within the EHR. Consistent and accurate documentation of disability status is needed to track the quality of care delivered to patients with communication disabilities and to identify patients who need disability accommodations required by the ADA. This project aims to adapt and evaluate the effects of an implementation support package of strategies to assist primary care clinics in (1) documenting patients’ communication disability and accommodation needs in the EHR and (2) providing communication disability accommodations. In Aim 1 we will employ Implementation Mapping Adapt, which will allow us to review existing literature and build upon what is already known about implementation of documentation of other demographic data. With a stakeholder panel, we will adapt an implementation support package for documentation of communication disability status and provision of communication accommodations in the primary care setting. Our final product will be a multi-component, multi-level implementation support package designed for use in varying contexts. In Aim 2 and 3, we will conduct a multi-method, Hybrid Type III effectiveness-implementation trial across 9 clinics in 3 healthcare systems: UCHealth, Denver Health (a safety net health system), and Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, IL. The primary care clinics will be diverse (e.g., urban, rural, women’s health, and geriatric clinics) to maximize learnings across different contexts. Our outcomes will be guided by the PRISM/RE-AIM framework, with our primary outcomes being the Reach of documentation of patients’ disability status (Aim 2) and the Adoption of provision of disability accommodations (Aim 3.) The study findings will inform a support package with scalable strategies that can be adapted and generalized to other types of disabilities.