# Expanding TelePain Across VISN20

> **NIH VA I50** · VA PUGET SOUND HEALTHCARE SYSTEM · 2020 · —

## Abstract

A core component of stepped-care for pain management is ensuring primary care providers and
patients have access to specialty pain care services. VISNS20 has developed a hub-spoke
TelePain model to help ensure patients seen in rural CBOCs across Washington, Alaska,
Oregon, and Idaho do not have to travel to an urban medical center to see a pain specialist.
This program was initiated in 2016 and to date has been focused on supporting 4 CBOCs in
Washington State. Although the program is well utilized, delivering over 1,300 visits to these
CBOC patients and has served as a substitute for Veterans having to travel to the Medical
Center in Seattle, this program has not been as fully utilized. Beginning in 2019, this hub-spoke
model will be expanded to CBOCs in Alaska and Oregon. The purpose of this project is to use
external facilitation to ensure the TelePain program is adopted by these CBOCs as rapidly as
possible. The study team will travel to Alaska and Oregon to conduct rapid analytic process
facilitation activities with providers and staff as the TelePain program in launched in these sites
in Mid-2019. The study team will also conduct qualitative interviews with Veterans who do and
do not use TelePain. This project will compare the experience of implementing TelePain using
facilitation in these new CBOCs with the historical experience in the original 4 Washington
CBOCs which did not benefit from external facilitation. The purpose of this work is to assess the
value and return-on-investment of external facilitation and help VISN 20 leadership understand
the value of supporting implementation activities when launching new clinical initiatives. A
facilitation toolkit will be developed with the goal of supporting facilitation when expanding
TelePain to additional rural CBOCs. The lessons learned from the facilitation activities will also
be applied to the original CBOCs to help increase adoption and utilization of TelePain referrals
among those CBOC providers and patients.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9837089
- **Project number:** 1I50HX002902-01
- **Recipient organization:** VA PUGET SOUND HEALTHCARE SYSTEM
- **Principal Investigator:** Steven Bacchus Zeliadt
- **Activity code:** I50 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2019-06-01 → 2020-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9837089

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9837089, Expanding TelePain Across VISN20 (1I50HX002902-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9837089. Licensed CC0.

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