February 2025 | VISN 5 MIRECC Link
Integrating Peer Specialists into VA Primary Care
Research Publication:
Peeples, A., Muralidharan, A., McCarthy, S., Goldberg, R., Kuykendall, L., Vineyard, N., & Chinman, M. (2022). Barriers and Enablers to Implementing Peer Specialists in Veterans Health Administration Primary Care: A Qualitative Study. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 38(3); 707-714.
Peer Specialists (PS), trained and certified Veterans with lived mental health experience, play an important role in supporting the health and wellness of Veterans. A decade ago, the VA piloted and has since continued the deployment of PSs in primary care settings. As reported in a previous paper across the 25 initial sites, we learned that receipt of outside expert assistance to plan and guide implementation (as compared to more limited support) was effective in supporting the implementation of PSs in primary care settings (1). As part of this initial pilot, the VISN 5 MIRECC was involved in conducting and analyzing a series of semi-structured qualitative interviews with PSs and their supervisors to characterize factors impacting implementation efforts. Across sites that did and did not receive expert external implementation support several themes emerged as being facilitators to (when present) or barriers toward (when absent) effective implementation including: Primary care provider teams understanding and buy-in the PSs role; the co-location of PSs in primary care settings; full time availability of the PS without competing demands; supervision and leadership support, as well as; the structure and culture of the primary care setting.
(1) Chinman, M., Goldberg, R., Daniels, K. et al. (2021) Implementation of peer specialist services in VA primary care: a cluster randomized trial on the impact of external facilitation. Implementation Science 16, Article number 60.
What Can Peer Specialists and Providers Do?
- Help all VA providers and staff understand the important and credible role PSs can play in supporting the health and wellness Veterans.
- VA-Specific Resources: Visit the VHA Peer Support Services SharePoint for resources to help support delivery of PS services across the care continuum in VA. Visit the SharePoint for Peer Support Staff in PACT/PCMHI: Peer Support Staff in PACT - Home. Once on the above SharePoint look for: Implementation Planning Guide, Orientation Guide, and an overview of all Community of Practice calls: National Calls.
- Review the Quality Enhancement Research Initiative QUERI Implementation Roadmap , a comprehensive practical guide to help plan and deploy methods to support uptake of effective practices in routine care settings.(QUERI) Implementation Roadmap (va.gov)
What Can Veterans and their Families Do?
- Ask their primary care providers about opportunities to connect to PS both within and outside of the primary care setting.
- Ask their mental health providers about how to access PS services both within and outside of the primary care setting.
- Let your providers know if you’d like to try treatments that address your social and relational needs.
- Download and use VA’s free and easy to use mobile application created help Veterans and others take the next step in supporting their health and well-being: Live Whole Health.
