A descriptive study of the health care integrator role in the United States Air Force (Disease management, Case management)

The Health Care Integrator (HCI) role was created to ensure each Air Force base was staffed with a resource person for the development and maintenance of sound healthcare practices. This descriptive study measures the level of implementation of the role throughout the Air Force. Findings indicated that a wide variation exists in the tasks that are performed by HCIs throughout the Air Force, and the mean response of how well the HCIs felt the role had been implemented in their own facility was 3.5 on a scale of 1 to 5. Of those who answered the question, 87% (n = 45) felt the role had been implemented fairly well or better. Additional duties and resistance from members of the organization were the top barriers identified; population health data and the Health Care Integrator course were reported as the top two facilitators to implementing the role.