VA Research Wrap Up: New research on lung cancer screening, rural hospitals and suicide prevention

The VA Office of Research and Development recently announced three News Briefs highlighting new findings on cancer screenings for veterans, improving rural VA hospitals and information on the suicide prevention program.

New centralized process improves lung cancer screening

Rural veterans are often screened for lung cancer through community-based care, but this can result in perceptions of low quality of care and fragmentation of care. The Minneapolis VA tested a centralized process that nearly cut the time between screening and receiving results from the ordering physician in half, from an average of 27.6 days to 14.5 days, and greatly improved adherence to guidelines.

The program also reduced the number of veterans receiving unnecessary screenings from 6.3% to zero. In this system, a nurse coordinator reviewed referrals, confirmed eligibility, ensured results were returned to the medical center, and ensured veterans received appropriate follow-up. The results show that centralized coordination by the VA can prevent fragmentation of care and ensure veterans receive timely screening and care.

View the full study from the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

Researchers create treatment manual for rural veterans

VA Eastern Colorado researchers adapted a hospital leadership manual for rural hospital medicine to improve team functioning and veteran care.

The “Relational Playbook for Cardiology Teams” is a six-month, evidence-based leadership development program designed to foster a VA-supportive learning environment. Researchers recruited clinical leaders in medicine, nursing, social work, and pharmacy from three rural VA hospitals to tailor the training to the challenges and needs of these facilities. Working with these leaders helped the researchers identify barriers and difficulties, such as physician burnout, which allowed them to adapt the approach to rural settings. Future work will assess the impact of this quality improvement initiative on direct care for veterans.

See the full study from the Journal of Rural Health.

Reducing suicides through better firearms safety

Lethal means that firearm safety training reduces the risk of suicide. Researchers at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx evaluated a peer-based training program called the Overwatch Project to help active-duty service members create a safety plan with their peers to use if a suicide crisis occurs.

In a group of 900 active-duty service members, 85% of those trained in Project Overwatch met the minimum score on the firearm safety knowledge assessment, compared to just 8% before training. Individuals who created a proactive safety plan on their own increased their scores by 42% after training. The results suggest that Project Overwatch could be a promising step toward reducing suicide among active-duty service members.

See the full study from the Archives of Suicide Research.

For more updates from the Office of Research and Development, visit WORD online or go to https://www.research.va.gov/news_briefs/.