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CompletedNCT01672385Updated Nov 7, 2016

Improving Transition Outcomes Through Accessible Health IT and Caregiver Support

An interventional study of Telemonitoring plus self-management support in Post-discharge, sponsored by University of Michigan. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 21 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2016-11-07.

Sponsored by University of Michigan · Not applicable, Interventional, and Health services research

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
246
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
21 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Background: Older hospitalized adults frequently experience preventable short-term readmissions due to inadequate transition support. Although proactive telephone follow-up improves transition outcomes, these services often are unsystematic and of low intensity. Informal caregivers are invaluable for ensuring successful transitions, but many patients live alone, have an in-home caregiver who is struggling with competing demands, or live at a distance from adult children or other potential sources of support. New models are needed for transition support that include low-cost technologies and more structured assistance for patients' informal caregiving network, while providing patients' clinical teams with the information they need to avert health crises.

Objectives: Consistent with NIA's goals to improve transition outcomes, we will evaluate a novel intervention designed to improve the effectiveness of transition support for older adults with common chronic conditions via three mechanisms of action: (a) direct tailored communication to patients via regular automated calls post discharge, (b) support for informal caregivers living outside of the patient's household via structured feedback about the patient's status and advice about how they can help, and (c) support for proactive care management including a web-based disease management tool, automated alerts about potential problems, and the capacity for asynchronous communication with patients and their caregivers. Specifically, the trial will determine: 1) whether the CarePartner intervention improves patients' readmission risk and functional status; 2) the impact of the intervention on patients' self-care behaviors and the quality of the transition process; and 3) whether the intervention improves caregiver burden and stress levels.

Read the detailed description

Methods: 846 older adults with complex chronic conditions will be identified upon admission to two community-based acute care medical services. Patients will be asked to identify a CarePartner (CP) living outside their household, i.e., an adult child or other social network member willing to play an active role in their transition support and organizing their broader network of informal caregivers. Patients will be randomized to the intervention or usual care. Intervention patients will receive automated assessment and behavior change calls, and their CPs will receive structured feedback and advice following each assessment. Patients' clinical team will have access to patients' assessment results via the web, will receive automated reports about urgent health problems, and will be able to communicate asynchronously with patients and CPs using a secure web page and a specially designed voicemail service. Patients will complete surveys at baseline, 30- and 90- days post discharge; utilization data will be obtained from hospital records. CPs, other caregivers, and clinicians will be interviewed to evaluate intervention effects on processes of self-care support, caregiver stress and communication, and the intervention's potential for broader implementation. The primary outcomes will be 30 day readmission rates; 2ndary outcomes measured at 30 and 90 days include functional status, self-care behaviors, and mortality risk.

02

Conditions studied

  • Post-discharge

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Keywords

  • CarePartner
  • informal caregiver
  • interactive voice response
  • transition
  • post-discharge
  • chronic illness
  • readmission
  • self-care
03

In context

Chronic Disease

1,005 studies on the registry are indexed under Chronic Disease; 174 are open to participants now.

This study's enrollment of 246 is above the median of 121 across 729 interventional studies indexed under Chronic Disease.

Browse Chronic Disease studies →

Lead sponsor

University of Michigan is the lead sponsor of 1,503 studies on the registry; 189 are open to participants now.

Of its 167 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 132 (79%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
21 Years and older
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • Being discharged from study site with any diagnoses that indicate a chronic condition with a high risk of short-term readmission, for example: stroke, heart failure, coronary artery disease, cardiac arrhythmias, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, peripheral vascular disease, deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, pneumonia, diabetes, urinary tract infection, cellulitis, gastroenteritis, fevers, and other infections
  • At least 50 years of age

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Serious mental illness, e.g., psychosis
  • Are in hospice care
  • Do not speak English
  • Are unable to use a telephone
  • Have a non-health system-affiliated primary care provider
  • Are unable to nominate a potentially eligible CarePartner
  • Are cognitively impaired as determined by a validate screener
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Health services research
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
246 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Intervention Group

    Telemonitoring plus self-management support

    Other: Telemonitoring plus self-management support

  • No intervention
    Usual Care Group

    Usual Care

Interventions

  • OtherTelemonitoring plus self-management support

    Patients in the intervention group receive automated telephone calls that ask about their health and self-care along with tailored health-related feedback. The patient's CarePartner receives health update reports about the patient and how they can help via e-mail. Urgent health problems are reported to the patient's health care team via fax or e-mail.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Specific Aim 1

    To determine the extent to which the CarePartner model for supporting effective transitions from hospital to home improves outcomes of care, including lower readmission rates, emergency department visits, and improved patient functional status.

    Time frame: Outcomes will be measured at 30- and 90-days post discharge.

  2. Specific Aim 2

    To evaluate the impact of the intervention on process measures of transition quality (e.g., attendance at post-discharge appointments and patients' understanding of their personal health record), as well as on patients' medication-related self-management (e.g., adherence and medication beliefs).

    Time frame: Outcomes will be measured at 30- and 90-days post discharge.

  3. Specific Aim 3

    To determine the extent to which the intervention increases the quality and quantity of support for patients' self-care using a mixed methods approach to identify whether the service reduces caregivers' stress and increases their activation levels (e.g., by increasing their disease-specific communication with the patient and successful problem solving).

    Time frame: Outcomes will be measured at 30- and 90-days post discharge.

07

Study locations

1 site
  • University of Michigan Health System
    Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109, United States
08

References and documents

Publications

  • Piette JD, Striplin D, Aikens JE, Lee A, Marinec N, Mansabdar M, Chen J, Gregory LA, Kim CS. Impacts of Post-Hospitalization Accessible Health Technology and Caregiver Support on 90-Day Acute Care Use and Self-Care Assistance: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Am J Med Qual. 2021 May-Jun 01;36(3):145-155. doi: 10.1177/1062860620943673. PubMed 32723072 ↗

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
Not marked actual or estimatedDates not marked actual or estimated

The record gives a start of Aug 2012, a primary completion of Oct 2016 and a completion of Oct 2016. It does not say whether these dates are actual or estimated.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
Aug 21, 2012
First posted
Aug 24, 2012
Start
Aug 2012
Primary completionActual
Oct 2016
CompletionActual
Oct 2016
Last update
Nov 7, 2016
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Nov 7, 2016, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT01672385
Responsible party
John Piette (VA Senior Research Career Scientist and Professor of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan) — Principal investigator
First posted
Aug 24, 2012
Start date
Aug 2012
Primary completion
Oct 2016
Completion
Oct 2016
Last update
Nov 7, 2016

Study contacts

John D. Piette, Ph.D.
principal investigator · VA Center for Clinical Management Research & the University of Michigan

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is completed, as verified in Nov 2016. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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