Women's Health

Technology and Collaborative Care Improve the Use of Hormone Therapy in Postmenopausal Women Veterans

The overall goal of this proposal is to determine the effectiveness of the VA Strategies To Educate and Address Menopause (VA-STEAM) intervention in improving the management of vasomotor symptoms (VMS) and vulvovaginal atrophy (VVA) in postmenopausal women Veterans age 45 to 60 who receive primary care at the Miami Veterans Affairs Healthcare System (VAHS). The VA-STEAM intervention is theoretically based on the Reasoned Action Model/Theory of Planned Behavior and consists of a series of information technology, phone, face-to-face, and print interventions that use the established technology and model of collaborative care in the Veterans Healthcare Administration (VHA). VA-STEAM will include the creation of a Menopause Clinical Reminder linked to a clinic note template in the Miami VAHS electronic health record (EHR). To accomplish this goal, South Florida VA will identify all women Veterans age 45 to 60 at three VHA facilities and then compare the impact of VA-STEAM on primary care providers and patients at the Miami VAHS, to a control group of primary care providers and patients at the West Palm Beach and Orlando VAHS who will not receive the intervention.