# Evaluating the National Implementation of Virtual Interdisciplinary Pain Care Teams - TelePain

> **NIH VA I50** · VA PUGET SOUND HEALTHCARE SYSTEM · 2021 · —

## Abstract

Project: Chronic pain is a leading cause of disability and a major contributor to the opioid epidemic and
suicide. Providing evidence-based pain care to Veterans is vital, yet nearly 1 in 3 VA facilities lacks an
interdisciplinary, multimodal pain management program. Interdisciplinary, multimodal pain treatment (IMPT)
has been recognized as the standard of care for high-impact chronic pain; however, outside of VA, community
pain clinics primarily offer unimodal treatment focused on high-reimbursement medical procedures instead of
IMPT. Pain management is one of VA’s highest-cost community care expenditures, yet VA facilities that lack
an IMPT team rely heavily on community care for pain management. To address the lack of pain specialists at
smaller VA facilities and the gaps in community pain care, the National Pain Management and Opioid Safety
Program (PMOP) is rolling out a telehealth model of virtual specialty pain teams, TelePain, to deliver evidence-
based IMPT to under-resourced regions. Our operational partners are building on VISN 20’s success to scale
up TelePain nationwide, starting with 3 VISNs per year in June 2021. PMOP needs rigorous evaluation support
to assess the impact of this high-priority TelePain initiative. Given its national scope and range of
implementation settings, the rollout of TelePain presents a unique opportunity to evaluate the implementation
of this program in the VA, with the goal of yielding actionable findings to inform not only the current effort but
also future implementation efforts to spread similar programs across the VA. The purpose of the proposed
Partnered Evaluation Initiative is to use systematic evaluation methods to continually improve TelePain
implementation and monitor the impact of TelePain on patient outcomes and costs at 9 VA facilities.
Project objectives: To assess the impact of the TelePain initiative, the Specific aims of this project include: 1.)
To assess the acceptability, feasibility, adoption, fidelity, reach, and costs of TelePain implementation at each
new VISN, 2.) To prospectively evaluate patient-reported clinical outcomes, comparing TelePain to referral to
community care or no specialty pain care (usual care control groups), to ensure that TelePain is benefitting
Veterans relative to usual care, 3.) To compare use of low-value pain care (e.g., injections, unnecessary
imaging, spinal fusion surgery) among patients referred to TelePain relative to control groups.
Project Methods: The proposed activities will be conducted as quality improvement. We will conduct a mixed
methods, quasi-experimental multisite evaluation to examine implementation outcomes and costs (Aim 1),
clinical outcomes, including both patient-reported outcomes and administrative data (Aim 2), and economic
impact of TelePain (Aim 3). Data sources for this project include administrative and electronic health record
data from VA’s Corporate Data Warehouse (CDW), Pharmacy Benefits Management Services, the Suicide
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## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10316573
- **Project number:** 1I50HX003430-01
- **Recipient organization:** VA PUGET SOUND HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
- **Principal Investigator:** Jessica Ann Chen
- **Activity code:** I50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-04-01 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10316573

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10316573, Evaluating the National Implementation of Virtual Interdisciplinary Pain Care Teams - TelePain (1I50HX003430-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10316573. Licensed CC0.

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