Pilot Study of an mHealth Intervention for Living Donor Follow-up (mHealth)

December 15, 2025 updated by: Johns Hopkins University

Pilot Study of a Mobile Health Intervention for Living Donor Follow-up

The investigators are interested in whether or not the use of a mobile health (mHealth) application increases the rate of follow-up compliance among living kidney donors. The investigators aim to test this by randomly assigning living kidney donors to the intervention (use of mHealth application to complete required living kidney donor follow-up at 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years) or control arm (standard of care) upon discharge from their initial donation hospitalization, and tracking follow-up compliance over time. The study population will be approximately 400 living kidney donors who undergo donor nephrectomy at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital (200/year for 2 years).

The investigators will also recruit patients from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center into the study, however, these study participants are not a part of the Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial (RCT).

Study Overview

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Living kidney donation has been promoted as the 'best treatment option' for eligible patients with end-stage renal disease on the transplant waitlist by the American Society of Transplantation. In 2017, 5,264 living kidney donor (LKD) transplants were performed in the United States, representing over one-third of all kidney transplants performed nationally. While living donor nephrectomy is viewed as an overall safe procedure, the surgery does carry associated potential risks, including out-of-pocket costs, difficulty obtaining insurance, and long-term health complications. In 2013, the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) passed new regulations requiring transplant hospitals to collect living kidney donor (LKD) follow-up data for a minimum of 2 years post-donation. Despite this national mandate, less than 50% of transplant hospitals were able to meet reporting thresholds for LKDs who donated in 2013. Documented challenges to collecting this data include cost, donor inconvenience, and data collection burden.

Therefore, novel methods are required to address incomplete donor follow-up. The investigators believe that mobile health (mHealth) systems, such as smartphone applications, would provide an effective, low-cost method of improving living donor follow-up rates. The investigators have built an mHealth system designed for reporting and collecting LKD follow-up data. The mHealth application was created based on previous studies conducted by the study team on the attitudes and perceptions of LKDs at a single transplant center on the use of mHealth for LKD follow-up, as well as after eliciting input from transplant thought leaders in the United States through semi-structured interviews. The aim of this study is to pilot test the mHealth system and compare the investigators' ability to achieve required follow-up at 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years against controls to help estimate potential effect sizes of the intervention.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

400

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
    • Tennessee
      • Nashville, Tennessee, United States, 37232
        • Vanderbilt University Medical Center
    • Texas
      • San Antonio, Texas, United States, 78229
        • Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital

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

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Adults (≥18 years)
  • Have undergone live donor nephrectomy at Methodist Specialty and Transplant Hospital in San Antonio, Texas
  • Have undergone live donor nephrectomy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Participants will only be excluded if they do not consent to the study

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: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Standard of Care
The control participants will be instructed to attend required follow-up as is standard of care, and will not receive the mHealth application.
Experimental: mHealth application
Participants in the intervention arm will receive the mHealth application at their first post-donation clinic visit. Study personnel will assist participants assigned to the mHealth intervention arm with downloading the application and explain its functioning. Participants will then use the application to complete their required 6-month, 1-year, and 2-year follow-up.
Other: mHealth application
The intervention is an mHealth smartphone application designed for living kidney donors to complete their required 2-year follow-up. It allows the donor to input the answers to the clinical survey responses, as well as upload a picture of their lab values.
Other Names:
  • Application

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
6-month compliance to follow-up
Time Frame: 6 months
Compliance with submitting questionnaires and laboratory values within 60 days of the six-month donation anniversary. Participants in the intervention arm will receive notifications when their follow-up is available to complete via the mHealth app, and subsequent notifications thereafter until either the donor completes both clinical and laboratory components of the required follow-up, or they are no longer compliant and within the 60-day window. Participants in the control arm will complete their follow-up as is current standard of care at Texas Transplant Institute.
6 months
1-year compliance to follow-up
Time Frame: 1 year
Compliance with submitting questionnaires and laboratory values within 60 days of the 1-year donation anniversary. Participants in the intervention arm will receive notifications when their follow-up is available to complete via the mHealth app, and subsequent notifications thereafter until either the donor completes both clinical and laboratory components of the required follow-up, or they are no longer compliant and within the 60-day window. Participants in the control arm will complete their follow-up as is current standard of care at Texas Transplant Institute.
1 year
2-year compliance to follow-up
Time Frame: 2 years
Compliance with submitting questionnaires and laboratory values within 60 days of the 2-year donation anniversary. Participants in the intervention arm will receive notifications when their follow-up is available to complete via the mHealth app, and subsequent notifications thereafter until either the donor completes both clinical and laboratory components of the required follow-up, or they are no longer compliant and within the 60-day window. Participants in the control arm will complete their follow-up as is current standard of care at Texas Transplant Institute.
2 years

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
6-month center follow-up compliance
Time Frame: 6 months
Overall center rate of compliance with follow-up with 80% of all donors within 60 days of the six-month donation anniversary.
6 months
1-year center follow-up compliance
Time Frame: 1 year
Overall center rate of compliance with follow-up with 80% of all donors within 60 days of the 1-year donation anniversary.
1 year
2-year center follow-up compliance
Time Frame: 2 years
Overall center rate of compliance with follow-up with 80% of all donors within 60 days of the 2-year donation anniversary.
2 years

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Johns Hopkins University

Collaborators

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Texas Transplant Institute

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Daniel Warren, PhD, Johns Hopkins University

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 (Actual)

May 1, 2018

Primary Completion (Estimated)

December 31, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

December 31, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

January 9, 2018

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

January 9, 2018

First Posted (Actual)

January 17, 2018

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimated)

December 16, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 15, 2025

Last Verified

December 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • IRB00162212
  • K01DK114388 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

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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