title: Coping with interdependencies related to patient choice: Boundary-spanning at four accountable care organizations.
abstract: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are responsible for outcomes that are only partially under their control because patients may choose to self-refer outside the ACO, overuse resource-intensive services, or underuse evidence-based care. ACOs must devise boundary-spanning practices to manage these interdependencies related to patient choice.
  
  
  
  The aim of this study was to identify, conceptualize, and categorize ACO efforts to cope with interdependencies related to patient choice.
  
  
  
  We conducted qualitative organizational case studies of four ACOs. We interviewed 89 executives, mid-level managers, and physicians and analyzed the data through multiple rounds of inductive coding.
  
  
  
  We identified 15 boundary-spanning practices, in which two or more ACOs engaged in efforts to understand, cope with, or alter interdependencies related to patient choice. Analysis of these practices revealed five categories of factors that appeared to shape patient choices in ways that may impact ACO performance: the availability of services, interactions with patients, system complexities, care provided to ACO patients by non-ACO providers, and uncertainties related to the environment. Our findings provide a process theory of ACO boundary-spanning: Each individual boundary-spanning practice contributes to a broader strategic goal, through which it may impact a particular aspect of interdependence and thereby reduce underuse, overuse, or leakage (i.e., provision of services outside the ACO).
  
  
  
  In identifying ACO boundary-spanning practices and proposing how they may impact interdependence, our theory highlights conceptual relationships that researchers can study and test. Similarly, in identifying key aspects of interdependencies related to patient choice and a broad assortment of ACO boundary-spanning practices, our findings provide managers with a tool for evaluating and developing their own boundary-spanning efforts.
authors.affiliation: Brian Hilligoss, PhD, MSIS, is Assistant Professor, Division of Health Services Management and Policy, College of Public Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus. E-mail: hilligoss.4@osu.edu. Ann Scheck McAlearney, ScD, MS, is Professor, Department of Family Medicine, College of Medicine, The Ohio State University, Columbus. Paula H. Song, PhD, MA, MHSA, is Associate Professor, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hilligoss
authors.forename: Ann Scheck
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: McAlearney
authors.forename: Paula H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Song
mesh_terms: D060866:Accountable Care Organizations / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D002755:Choice Behavior; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D057240:Patient Preference / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D058996:Quality Improvement / Q000458:organization & administration; D000073278:Self-Management