Improving Care of Patients With Heart Failure

May 13, 2014 updated by: University of California, San Francisco

A Randomized Controlled Trial for Patients With Heart Failure

Heart failure (HF) affects more than 5 million Americans and is a major source of morbidity and mortality. Despite optimal management, over half of patients with HF suffer from pain, dyspnea, fatigue, and depression that diminish quality of life (QoL). HF care also exacts a huge financial toll with yearly costs of $35 billion. Although consensus guidelines call for providing palliative care (PC) to patients with HF to relieve suffering and improve QoL, few receive it. The overall aim of this project is to conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine if an interdisciplinary PC intervention (Symptom Management Service-HF [SMS-HF]) provided concurrently with standard cardiology care improves symptoms, QoL and satisfaction, and reduces resource utilization in outpatients with Class II-IV HF compared to standard cardiology care alone. Subjects assigned to the SMS-HF group will receive a 6-month interdisciplinary PC intervention based on the investigators successful SMS model of outpatient PC for oncology patients and focused on assessment and management of physical, emotional, social, and spiritual distress and discussion of treatment preferences. Innovations of this study are that it will rigorously assess the impact of the SMS-HF on patient outcomes and on resource utilization, a key component to ensuring program sustainability. The investigators research team of PC and HF experts is recognized for its PC research and has a proven record of collaborating, conducting RCTs of PC interventions, and studying outpatients with HF. The environment at UCSF is highly supportive of innovative research and of sustaining programs with demonstrated improvements in patient outcomes and operational effectiveness. The overall goal is to use the results from this study to support an application to the NIH for a multi-center RCT of the SMS-HF and to study similar models of concurrent PC for patients with other serious illnesses.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

30

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • California
      • San Francisco, California, United States, 94143
        • UCSF Medical Center
      • San Francisco, California, United States, 94143
        • University of California San Francisco Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

  • HF as primary Dx or symptomatic/active HF
  • During index hospitalization or within the prior 6 months
  • Age > 18
  • Admit from: hospital, skilled nursing, home
  • Medicine, Cardiology, and Heart Failure Services
  • Co-morbidities can include end-stage renal disease, metastatic cancer, ICU/CCU care patients if able to consent and complete survey
  • English speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Non-English speaking
  • Previous consult by Palliative Care Service
  • Pulmonary HTN
  • Right Heart Failure
  • LVAD
  • PCI or CABG patient within this admission
  • AS with planned surgical intervention
  • Pre/post heart transplant
  • Pre/post organ transplant within this admission
  • Dementia (unable to consent)
  • Homeless
  • Active drug user
  • Hospice enrolled patient
  • GeriTraCC patients
  • Does not have a UCSF physician
  • Lives outside of the SF Bay Area

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Symptom Management Service for heart failure
Subjects randomized to the SMS-HF group will receive a comprehensive PC consultation by the interdisciplinary PC team at each site consisting of a nurse practitioner, physician, social worker and chaplain with 6 months of follow up. All members of the PC team are experienced PC clinicians. The SMS-HF intervention is based on National Quality Forum preferred practices and the National Consensus Project guidelines for quality PC. The SMS-HF will include assessment and management of symptoms, particularly focused on depression, pain and dyspnea, and a discussion of goals of care.
Procedure: Symptom Management Service for Heart failure
The symptom management service for heart failure (SMS-HF) will begin in the hospital where the patient will be seen daily until discharge and continue with at least 6 contacts over the next 6 months with the first outpatient contact occurring in person in the HF clinic within a month of discharge. Of the subsequent 5 monthly contacts, at least 2 will be in person with the remainder by telephone. Additional contacts between the SMS-HF team and patient will be scheduled as needed. Patients discharged to a site other than home will have monthly contacts by telephone until they are able to attend the clinic. We will assess changes in depression, pain, dyspnea, and quality of life from baseline to 6 month follow-up.
Other Names:
  • SMS-HF
No Intervention: Usual cardiology care
The usual cardiology care group will receive usual care provided by the HF clinic. We will assess symptoms and QoL at enrollment and symptoms, QoL, satisfaction, advance care planning documentation, and resource utilization at follow up 6 months later.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Assess change in depression using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)
Time Frame: Outcome measures will be assessed through month 6 post baseline
Outcome measures will be assessed at baseline, 3-months and 6-months The CES-D is a 20-item measure that includes items pertaining to a range of depressive symptoms. Each symptom is assessed 'in the past week' and recorded on a 4-point numeric scale (0= "rarely or none of the time" to 3= "most or all of the time") providing a composite score (range 0 - 60). A score of 16 or higher is generally used to denote the presence of significant depressive symptoms.
Outcome measures will be assessed through month 6 post baseline

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of California, San Francisco

Collaborators

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Steven Z Pantilat, MD, UCSF School of Medicine

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

March 1, 2012

Primary Completion (Actual)

September 1, 2013

Study Completion (Actual)

December 1, 2013

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

October 17, 2011

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 27, 2011

First Posted (Estimate)

October 28, 2011

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

May 14, 2014

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

May 13, 2014

Last Verified

May 1, 2014

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 11-06859

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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