Effectiveness of Transitional Care Services

Can Refinements to Effective Transitional Care Services Improve Outcomes? Results From a Pragmatic, Randomized Controlled Trial.

The National University Hospital System has designed and is piloting an improved post-discharge care programme called CareHub for patients undergoing cardiac surgery. CareHub is a post-discharge care programme that is designed to streamline and better coordinate current programmes for patients at high risk of readmission.

To assess the clinical and cost-effectiveness of CareHub, our team will randomly assign patients to a usual care setting or CareHub setting, and measure clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, readmissions, and length of stay through 6 months post-discharge in both groups.Patients enrolled in both groups will receive post-discharge care for six months after discharge. CareHub patients will receive a single point of contact for access to usual care services. Recruitment for this pilot will be from 20 April 2016 - approximately late October 2016, and the CareHub team will provide 6 months of post-discharge support. The entire pilot will thus run from 20 April 2016 - April / May 2017, with data collection extending 6 months after the last patient is enrolled.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Post-cardiac Surgery
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Usual Care; Behavioral: CareHub

Detailed Description

Today, the National University Hospital System has a variety of transitional / post-discharge care programmes, and patients may be enrolled in more than one. Each of these programmes is run by a different hospital team, so a patient may have to liaise with many parties for their post-discharge care.

The National University Hospital System has designed and is piloting an improved post-discharge care programme called CareHub for patients undergoing cardiac surgery. Recruitment for this pilot will be from 20 April 2016 - approximately late October 2016, and the CareHub team will provide 6 months of post-discharge support. The entire pilot will thus run from 20 April 2016 - April / May 2017.

CareHub is a post-discharge care programme that is designed to streamline and better coordinate current programmes for patients at high risk of readmission. Patients enrolled in CareHub and usual care will receive post-discharge care for six months after discharge. However, patients in CareHub will experience:

(i) Provision of a single point of contact for all the patient's needs, to help patients and their families navigate the healthcare system as well as various programmes available in the hospital and community. Care Coordinator identifies patients and starts working with care team during the inpatient phase, and follows patient through to the post-discharge phase.

(ii) More structured and regular telephone support and checks, to help ease the hospital-to-home transition, as well as to provide more opportunity to verify that patients are adhering to their recommended treatment (which may include e.g. checking that patients have made use of the daycare services CareHub recommended).

(iii) A call center which will operate during office hours, where tele-consult will be available from and nurses/care coordinators.

(iv) A consolidated multi-disciplinary discharge plan, based on the input of all healthcare workers caring for the patient. These include the CareHub coordinator, ward doctor and nurse, heart failure care manager, and allied health professionals, as required.

(v) Early identification and preparation for post-discharge care. Healthcare workers listed in (iv) will participate in a daily in-patient multi-disciplinary ward huddle, to discuss the patient's condition and start early preparation for post-discharge care.

To assess the clinical and cost-effectiveness of CareHub, our team will randomly assign patients to a usual care setting or CareHub setting, and measure clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction, readmissions, and length of stay through 6 months post-discharge in both groups.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 270
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Singapore
  • Singapore, Singapore
    • National University Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 99 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• All patients admitted to the cardiac inpatient service post-cardiac surgery

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients that do not consent or are unable to consent to be included into CareHub

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Usual Care; Telephone and/or home visits at 1 week, and thereafter, monthly for 6 months, to check on medication compliance and/or medical social problems and/or physical therapy needs and/or health-related financial challenges by the relevant service departments as recommended by the discharging physician.	Behavioral: Usual Care
Active Comparator: CareHub; Telephone follow-up by a nurse care coordinator acting as single point of contact for medication compliance and/or medical social problems and/or physical therapy needs and/or health-related financial challenges based on automatic enrollment using ACE score cut-off at admission.	Behavioral: CareHub

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Post-discharge length of stay	Patient's length of stay for any readmissions following index admission	6 months
Unplanned readmissions	Whether patients were admitted for a cardiac complaint after index admission	6 months
Cardiac-related specialist outpatient clinic visits	The number of post-index admission visits to an outpatient clinic for cardiac consults	6 months
Emergency department visits	The number of emergency department visits post-index admission	6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Net cost of service utilization	CareHub cost/patient minus Usual Care cost/patient	6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Johns Hopkins University
• Collaborators: National University Health System, Singapore
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: John Wong, MD, PhD, National University Hospital System; Principal Investigator: Phillip Phan, PhD, Johns Hopkins University

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Naylor M, Brooten D, Jones R, Lavizzo-Mourey R, Mezey M, Pauly M. Comprehensive discharge planning for the hospitalized elderly. A randomized clinical trial. Ann Intern Med. 1994 Jun 15;120(12):999-1006. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-120-12-199406150-00005.
• Coleman EA, Smith JD, Frank JC, Min SJ, Parry C, Kramer AM. Preparing patients and caregivers to participate in care delivered across settings: the Care Transitions Intervention. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2004 Nov;52(11):1817-25. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2004.52504.x.
• Coleman EA. Falling through the cracks: challenges and opportunities for improving transitional care for persons with continuous complex care needs. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2003 Apr;51(4):549-55. doi: 10.1046/j.1532-5415.2003.51185.x.
• Jencks SF, Williams MV, Coleman EA. Rehospitalizations among patients in the Medicare fee-for-service program. N Engl J Med. 2009 Apr 2;360(14):1418-28. doi: 10.1056/NEJMsa0803563. Erratum In: N Engl J Med. 2011 Apr 21;364(16):1582.
• Greysen SR, Harrison JD, Kripalani S, Vasilevskis E, Robinson E, Metlay J, Schnipper JL, Meltzer D, Sehgal N, Ruhnke GW, Williams MV, Auerbach AD. Understanding patient-centred readmission factors: a multi-site, mixed-methods study. BMJ Qual Saf. 2017 Jan;26(1):33-41. doi: 10.1136/bmjqs-2015-004570. Epub 2016 Jan 14.
• Wee SL, Loke CK, Liang C, Ganesan G, Wong LM, Cheah J. Effectiveness of a national transitional care program in reducing acute care use. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2014 Apr;62(4):747-53. doi: 10.1111/jgs.12750. Epub 2014 Mar 17.
• Allen J, Hutchinson AM, Brown R, Livingston PM. Quality care outcomes following transitional care interventions for older people from hospital to home: a systematic review. BMC Health Serv Res. 2014 Aug 15;14:346. doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-14-346.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): July 1, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 30, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): October 1, 2017

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 12, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 22, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): November 27, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 24, 2018
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 22, 2018
• Last Verified: August 1, 2018

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: NUHSCareHub

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: Individual participate data has been de-identified. There are currently no plans to share the data.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No