Warm Handoffs and Attendance at Initial Integrated Behavioral Health Appointments

Christine A. Pace; Katherine Gergen-Barnett; Alysa Veidis; Joanna D’Afflitti; Jason Worcester; Pedro Fernandez; Karen E. Lasser

doi:10.1370/afm.2263

Published eLetters

If you would like to comment on this article, click on Submit a Response to This article, below. We welcome your input.

Submit a Response to This Article

Compose eLetter

Title *

Author Information

Contributors
First Name and Middle Initial * First or given name, e.g. 'Peter'. Last Name * Your last, or family, name, e.g. 'MacMoody'. Email Address * Your email address, e.g. higgs-boson@gmail.com Occupation * Your role and/or occupation, e.g. 'Orthopedic Surgeon'. Affiliation * Your organization or institution (if applicable), e.g. 'Royal Free Hospital'.

Statement of Competing Interests

Competing interests? *

Yes

Please describe the competing interests

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

What code is in the image? *

Enter the characters shown in the image.

Vertical Tabs

Jump to comment:

Surprising results: Warm handoffs and attendance at integrated behavioral health
Jeffrey Scherrer

Published on: 16 July 2018

Published on: (16 July 2018)
Page navigation anchor for Surprising results: Warm handoffs and attendance at integrated behavioral health
Surprising results: Warm handoffs and attendance at integrated behavioral health
Jeffrey Scherrer, Professor
I applaud Pace et al.'s novel study of warm handoffs. The authors demonstrate the value of expanding measures in the electronic health record (EHR) by tracking whether patients received a warm handoff. This study would be very difficult had the investigators manually abstracted 2, 690 charts to identify warm handoffs. By adding more process of care measures and patient level data, the EHR can be employed in more sophi...
Show More

I applaud Pace et al.'s novel study of warm handoffs. The authors demonstrate the value of expanding measures in the electronic health record (EHR) by tracking whether patients received a warm handoff. This study would be very difficult had the investigators manually abstracted 2, 690 charts to identify warm handoffs. By adding more process of care measures and patient level data, the EHR can be employed in more sophisticated health services and epidemiological studies. Conversely, the unexpected findings that warm handoffs were not associated with initial appointment highlights what is missing in the EHR. Without a means to track patients' reasons for not attending an appointment (a measure that would be difficult to obtain as the patient departs for the door) it is not possible to determine why the warm hand-off did not improve attendance at initial appointment. Maybe the investigators will be able to conduct a follow-up study contacting patients who did not attend and those who did attend to identify reasons behind these decisions. Maybe it is as simple as not having the time to remain at the clinic or time to reflect on engaging in behavioral therapy. If patients need time to reflect on other treatment decisions (e.g. surgery) we should expect they need time to think about starting behavioral therapy. Future research should determine if patients need time to make a decision about their behavioral health treatment options, if so, warm-handoffs might inadvertently create a barrier to care.
Competing interests: None declared
Show Less

Competing Interests: None declared.