Feasibility of Remote Cochlear Implant Users' Follow-up (TELERIC1)

September 28, 2017 updated by: Christine PONCET-WALLET, Hôpital Rothschild

Comparison of Remote Versus Standard On-site Care for Long Term Follow-up of Adult Cochlear Implant Users: a Prospective Controlled Feasibility Study

Cochlear implants (CIs) are medical devices now widely used in persons with severe to profound hearing loss. After a six month to one-year period following implantation, adults typically reach optimal fitting parameters, which lead to a stabilized hearing performance with their CI. At this stage, they usually enter a routine clinical after-care program, which involves regular appointmentsattheir CI center. Such visits aim at identifying any complication, which can be medical (abnormal cutaneous healing evolution) and/or device related, as well as any declinein performance (possibly related to the former). In France, the HAS (French Health Authority) recommends CI users tobe seen around threetimes a year during the second and third years after implantation, and then annually. While the schedule of appointments remains dependent on centers' practices, there is some kind of consensus about the minimal content of a long-term follow-up session:medical consultation, CI external parts checking, free field aided tonal audiometry, fitting adjustments if necessary,speech understanding assessments.

Our center (CRIC) is one of the biggest French CI implant centers approved by the HAS, providing after-care for no less than 750 CI users, most of whomhave entered their long-term follow-up period. For some, attending follow-up appointments may need several hours, require taking a half-day off work, and entail travel expenses. Some patients may also have associated disabilities making it difficultto reach the center.Moreover, although the cohort of patients has increased over the years, the number of trained professionals and the clinical care infrastructures have not evolved proportionally. As a consequence, there is a need to reduce the number of routine visits, to allow more scope for complex cases andto efficiently identify issues.

Remote consultation seems to address all the points listed above. However, it appears that little has been doneto develop remote after-care for cochlear implant recipients. Published studies mainly focus on the fitting aspects.

The development of telemedicine has become one of the key priorities of the French government over the past few years, and it is now feasible thanks to the development of high speed connections (ADSL, mobile internet, high definition transmissions). Promoting telemedicine has several goals, the main one being to extend health care services to underserved patients in remote locations; it also allows some medical units to be freed upand to reserve infrastructures and professionals for patients requesting critical care. Of course, telemedicine is also meant to save costs.

The objectif of this protocole is to evaluate the feasibility of telemedicine applied to adult cochlear implant users' follow-up by comparing the data of the medical consultation and speech therapy assessment, carried out in the CRIC service and videoconferencing when the patient is home, using his computer equipment to communicate with the CRIC.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

30

Phase

  • Not Applicable

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

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Patients with cochlear implants for more than 12 months followed by CRIC
  • native French language
  • possibility to carry out the sessions (remote and on-site) within a short time (30 days +/- 8 days) .Patients who can have a computer with internet connection quality and user of remote access type Skype in good conditions Listening, privacy and anonymity.
  • Having given their consent to participate in this protocol

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Unavailability to carry out the acts of telemedicine
  • Difficulty having good quality remote access from home
  • Not benefiting from a social protection scheme
  • Persons deprived of their liberty by judicial or administrative decision

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: Non-Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Crossover Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: group A start with the remote session followed by on site
Other: telemedicine
telemedicine applied to adult cochlear implant users' follow-up
Active Comparator: group B start with on site followed by telemedecine
Other: telemedicine
telemedicine applied to adult cochlear implant users' follow-up

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
comparison the data of the medical consultation and speech therapy assessment, carried out in the CRIC service and videoconferencing when the patient is home, using his computer equipment to communicate with the CRIC
Time Frame: 18 months
No differences between the speech data and the consultation data for acts at a distance compared to face-to-face acts.
18 months

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Hôpital Rothschild

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 (Actual)

May 1, 2015

Primary Completion (Actual)

June 1, 2015

Study Completion (Actual)

March 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 12, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 12, 2017

First Posted (Estimate)

January 16, 2017

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

October 2, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 28, 2017

Last Verified

January 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2014-A01871-46

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

No

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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