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RecruitingNCT07549178CCMUpdated Aug 19, 2026

Care Coordination and Passive Mobile Data Monitoring to Improve Mental Health Care

An interventional study of Care Coordination Mobile in Severe Mental Illness, sponsored by VA Office of Research and Development. Recruiting at 2 sites in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-08-19.

Sponsored by VA Office of Research and Development · Not applicable, Interventional, and Health services research

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
400
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years and older
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Providing care to individuals with serious mental illness can be challenging, requiring ongoing monitoring, treatment adjustments, and coordination of various medical and social services. Rates of emergency service and hospital use are high due to unexpected social, medical, and mental health crises. Stressors and poor adherence with treatment are common and can lead to rapid worsening in symptoms, job loss, homelessness, incarceration, or suicide. Clinician visits can be infrequent. Patient-clinician contact between visits is challenging and often nonexistent. As such, illness exacerbations usually occur with no clinician awareness in real time, leaving limited opportunity to provide services. Clinicians need interventions that are capable of monitoring and quickly detecting worsening behaviors and illness, to improve care coordination, outreach, and treatment. This project studies the effectiveness of enhanced care coordination using passive mobile data monitoring and support from peer specialists, with the goal of improving outcomes and reducing the need for acute care.

Read the detailed description

Overview: Providing care to individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) can be challenging, requiring ongoing monitoring, treatment adjustments, and coordination of various medical and social services. Rates of emergency service and hospital use are high due to unexpected social, medical, and mental health crises. A variety of stressors and poor adherence with treatment are common and can lead to rapid worsening in symptoms, job loss, homelessness, incarceration, or suicide. Clinician visits can be infrequent. Patient-clinician contact between visits is challenging and often nonexistent. As such, illness exacerbations usually occur with no clinician awareness in real time, leaving limited opportunity to provide services. This project studies, in Veterans with SMI and high risk for acute care, the effectiveness of an enhanced care coordination mobile intervention (CCM) that uses passive mobile data and support from peer coaches. The investigators hypothesize that CCM will reduce the need for acute care services in comparison to usual care.

Specific Aims:

Among Veterans with SMI:

  1. Engage Veterans and clinicians in co-design activities that adapt previously tested protocols and tools to guide implementation of enhanced care coordination with mobile (CCM intervention) that includes passive mobile monitoring of Veterans' mental health status, technology and behavioral supports from peer coaches, and care coordination within a Behavioral Health Interdisciplinary Program (BHIP).
  2. Determine the effectiveness of CCM on acute care use. Implement CCM using protocols and tools from Aim 1 and randomize high-risk patients with SMI to CCM or usual care for 9 months.
  3. Evaluate implementation of CCM.
  4. Conduct a budget impact analysis of CCM.

Methodology:

Population: patients with SMI and high risk for acute care use. Intervention: enhanced care coordination within a VA BHIP program using passive mobile monitoring and supports from peer coaches Comparison: effectiveness trial with randomization to CCM or usual care for 9 months Outcome: reduction in use of urgent care services (emergency visits, hospitalization, or death) Qualitative and quantitative methods

02

Conditions studied

  • Severe Mental Illness

Keywords

  • Mental Disorders, Severe
  • Veterans
  • Remote Sensing Technology
  • Mobile Applications
  • Patient Care Team
  • Continuity of Patient Care
  • Disease Management
  • Peer Coaching
  • Health Care Utilization
03

Who can participate

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

Inclusion criteria

  • a medical record diagnosis of Serious Mental Illness (SMI)

    • defined as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or bipolar disorder
  • receipt of care at the VA site during the prior 9 months
  • a Care Assessment Need (CAN) score over the 75th percentile, indicating high risk for hospitalization or death in the upcoming year
  • ownership of a smart phone

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • none
04

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Health services research
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Single (Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
400 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Active comparator
    CCM

    Mobile monitoring, peer coaching, and enhanced care coordination

    Behavioral: Care Coordination Mobile

  • No intervention
    usual care

    Usual care services

Interventions

  • BehavioralCare Coordination Mobile

    Mobile monitoring, peer coaching, and enhanced care coordination

    Also known as: CCM

05

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Acute care utilization

    Use of emergency service, use of hospitals, and death are each a binary measure (yes/no). These will be combined to make one binary measure that is yes if any one of these three is yes, and otherwise no.

    Time frame: 9 months

Secondary outcomes

  1. Interpersonal supports - Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL)

    Level of social support measured using the Interpersonal Support Evaluation List-12 (ISEL). Scores can range from 0 to 36, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.

    Time frame: 9 months

  2. Patient activation - Patient Activation Measure (PAM)

    Patient activation measured using the short-form Patient Activation Measure (PAM-13). Scores can range from 13 to 52, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.

    Time frame: 9 months

  3. Engagement with care - Working Alliance Inventory (WAI)

    Engagement with care measured using the Working Alliance Inventory for General Practice (WAI-GP). Scores can range from 12 to 60, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.

    Time frame: 9 months

  4. Receipt of care appropriate for chronic conditions - Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (PACIC)

    Receipt of care appropriate for chronic conditions measured using the 20-item Patient Assessment of Chronic Illness Care (PACIC). Scores can range from 20 to 100, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.

    Time frame: 9 months

  5. Care experience - Ambulatory Care Experiences Survey (ACES)

    Care experience measured using the Ambulatory Care Experiences Survey (ACES) Short Form. Scores can range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.

    Time frame: 9 months

  6. Psychiatric symptoms - Behavior And Symptom Identification Scale (BASIS-24)

    Psychiatric symptoms measured using the Behavior And Symptom Identification Scale (BASIS-24). Scores can range from 0 to 96, with higher scores indicating worse outcomes.

    Time frame: 9 months

  7. Quality of life - Veterans RAND 12 item Health Survey (VR-12)

    Health-related quality of life measured using the Veterans RAND 12 item Health Survey (VR-12). Scores can range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.

    Time frame: 9 months

06

Study locations

2 of 2 sites recruiting
  • VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, West Los Angeles, CA
    West Los Angeles, California 90073-1003, United States
    Recruiting
  • Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA
    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4551, United States
    Recruiting
07

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Yes — A Limited Dataset (LDS) will be created and shared pursuant to a Data Use Agreement (DUA) appropriately limiting use of the dataset and prohibiting the recipient from identifying or re-identifying (or taking steps to identify or re-identify) any individual whose data are included in the dataset. Analytic datasets will be made available in accordance with local and national VA policy and compliance regulations. Mechanisms for sharing datasets will be based on infrastructure and resources available through either the local VA facility or VHA nationally. Researchers interested in accessing datasets will be required to sign a Data Use Agreement. Preservation and sharing of analytic datasets will allow other researchers to replicate published results and/or perform additional analyses. Researchers will be provided with a limited dataset as well as documentation regarding methods used for dataset creation and analytic procedures.

Supporting information: Study protocol, Sap

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

08

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT07549178
Lead sponsor
VA Office of Research and Development
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Apr 23, 2026
Start date
Aug 10, 2026
Primary completion
Oct 31, 2029 (estimated)
Completion
Apr 30, 2030 (estimated)
Last update
Aug 19, 2026

Study contacts

Ronald Calderon, MSW
Contact
ronald.calderon@va.gov
(310) 478-3711 ext. 46763
Alexander S Young, MD MSHS
Contact
Alexander.Young@va.gov
(310) 268-3416
Alexander Stehle Young, MD MSHS
principal investigator · VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, West Los Angeles, CA

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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