Acupuncture and Chiropractic Care for Chronic Pain in an Integrated Health Plan

Substantial recent research examines the efficacy and biological basis of many types of complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies. However, "real-world" use of CAM has been largely overlooked, despite calls for CAM therapies to be studied in the manner in which they are practiced and urging high prioritization for research that includes clinical outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and the decision-making process for patients and providers. There is, therefore, heightened need for enriched understanding-particularly given CAM's growing popularity, which fortunately offers stores of new data for research. Recent studies suggests that Americans seek CAM treatments far more often for chronic musculoskeletal pain (CMP) than for any other condition. Among CAM treatments for CMP, acupuncture and chiropractic (A/C) care are among those with the highest acceptance by physician groups and the best evidence to support their use. Further, recent alarming increases in delivery of opioid treatment and surgical interventions for chronic pain-despite their high costs, potential adverse effects, and modest efficacy-suggests the need to evaluate the outcomes associated with promising non-pharmacological/non-surgical CAM treatments for CMP, which are often well accepted by patients and increasingly used in the community.

This study responds to the NCCAM program announcement PAR-08-045, "Outcomes, Cost-Effectiveness and the Decision Making Process to Use CAM."

Because this project consists of four discrete sets of project activities (that largely follow one another chronologically), the investigators plan to submit separate IRQs to cover each set of project activities as follows:

(Phase1) Retrospective study using information from the EMR to identify unique clusters of patients with CMP, their trajectories of care within the health plan, and to examine how those in unique clusters may have differing propensities for the use of A/C services and/or differential outcomes associated with such care. The IRQ for this study has been submitted (Phase 2) The administration of an out-of-plan CAM survey to determine from a broad sample of KP members their use of such services.

(Phase 3) The collection of qualitative data (focus groups and individual interviews) from KP members, KP providers, and acupuncturists and chiropractors from the community to examine KP providers decision to recommend A/C services, A/C services delivered to KP patients, and patients' decisions to pursue and retain CAM care. A secondary purpose is to have KP members with CMP review planned assessment instruments for phase 4 of the study to provide feedback on: relevancy, any notable omissions of domains important in patients' decision to use CAM services for pain treatment and broader health and quality of life outcomes associated with such CAM treatments, as well as to review understandability of the assessment instruments.

(Phase 4) A prospective cohort study to evaluate health services/costs and broader clinical and functional outcomes associated with the receipt of A/C relative to carefully matched comparison participants receiving traditional CMP services.