Improving Patient Prioritization During Hospital-homecare Transition (PREVENT)

September 22, 2025 updated by: Maxim Topaz, Columbia University

Improving Patient Prioritization During Hospital-homecare Transition: A Mixed Methods Study of a Clinical Decision Support Tool

This research work is focused on building and evaluating one of the first evidence-based clinical decision support tools for homecare in the United States. The results of this study have the potential to standardize and individualize nursing decision making using cutting-edge technology and to improve patient outcomes in the homecare setting.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Each year, more than 5 million patients are admitted to the approximately 12,000 homecare agencies across the United States. About 20% of homecare patients are rehospitalized during the homecare episode, with as many as 68% of these rehospitalizations occurring within the first two weeks of services. A significant portion of these rehospitalizations may be prevented by timely and appropriately targeted allocation of homecare services. The first homecare nursing visit is one of the most critical steps of the homecare episode. This visit includes an examination of the home environment, a discussion regarding whether a caregiver is present, an assessment of the patient's capacity for self-care, and medication reconciliation. A unique care plan is created based on this evaluation of the patient's needs. Hence, appropriate timing of the first visit is crucial, especially for patients with urgent healthcare needs. However, nurses often have very limited and inaccurate information about incoming patients and patient priority decisions vary significantly between nurses.

The investigators developed an innovative decision support tool called "Priority for the First Nursing Visit Tool" (PREVENT) to assist nurses in prioritizing patients in need of immediate first homecare nursing visits. In a recent efficacy pilot study of PREVENT, high-risk patients received their first homecare nursing visit a half day sooner as compared to the control group, and 60-day rehospitalizations decreased by almost half as compared to the control group. The proposed study assembles a strong interdisciplinary team of experts in health informatics, nursing, homecare, and sociotechnical disciplines to evaluate PREVENT in a pre-post intervention effectiveness study. Specifically, the study aims are: Aim 1) Evaluate the effectiveness of the PREVENT tool on process and patient outcomes. Using survival analysis and logistic regression with propensity score matching the researchers will test the following hypotheses: Compared to not using the tool in the pre-intervention phase, when homecare clinicians use the PREVENT tool, high risk patients in the intervention phase will: a) receive more timely first homecare visits and b) have decreased incidence of rehospitalization and have decreased emergency department (ED) use within 60 days. Aim 2) Explore PREVENT's reach and adoption by the homecare admission staff and describe the tool's implementation during homecare admission. Aim 2 will be assessed using mixed methods including homecare admission staff interviews, think-aloud simulations, and analysis of staffing and other relevant data.

This innovative study addresses several National Institute of Nursing Research strategic priorities, such as promoting innovation and using technology to improve health. Mixed methods will enable us to gain in-depth understanding of the complex socio-technological aspects of hospital-homecare transition.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

1915

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
    • New York
      • New York, New York, United States, 10032
        • Columbia University School of Nursing
      • New York, New York, United States, 10033
        • Visiting Nurse Service of New York

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

Aim 1:

Inclusion criteria:

  1. being a patient of either NewYork-Presbyterian (NYP)/Columbia University Irving Medical Center or NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital;
  2. being referred to Visiting Nurse Services of New York (VNSNY) homecare services
  3. 18 years old or older.

Exclusion criteria:

All other patients are going to be excluded.

Aim 2 :

Inclusion criteria:

  1. working as an admission staff for VNSNY
  2. 18 years old or older.

Exclusion criteria:

All other staff members are going to be excluded.

For both study aims, there will be no exclusion based on sex, race, or ethnic group.

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: Screening
  • Allocation: N/A
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Experimental phase
The PREVENT recommendation about patient homecare priority will be shared in homecare referral communication with the homecare intake coordinators. Homecare intake coordinators will be instructed to prioritize high risk patients for care.
Other: PREVENT clinical decision support
PREVENT clinical decision support tool consideres five patient risk factors as significant predictors of patient's priority for the first homecare nursing visit: (a) Presence of wounds (either surgical or pressure ulcers); (b) a documented comorbid condition of depression; (c) need for assistive equipment, assistive person, or both for toileting; (d) number of medications; and (e) number of comorbid conditions. Each risk factor was assigned a specific score based on the logistic regression weights. For instance, for a wound (e.g., pressure ulcer, vascular ulcer), the patient received a score of 15 points. For each additional co-morbid condition, one point was added to the final score. Summing the scores for the factors generated a cumulative score. The optimal cut-off point was established based on the regression model performance statistics, indicating that patients with a score greater than 26 points are a high priority for the first nursing visit.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Number of Rehospitalizations Within 60 Days After Hospital Discharge
Time Frame: Up to 60 days after hospital discharge
To learn if using PREVENT tool results in decreased incidence of rehospitalization [defined as recurrent hospital admission within 60 days from hospital discharge]
Up to 60 days after hospital discharge

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
System Usability Scale (SUS) Score
Time Frame: 30-60 days after clinical decision support tool (PREVENT) implementation
Nurses' usability perception of the clinical decision support tool (PREVENT) will be assessed by using the System Usability Scale (SUS). The SUS is a 10 item questionnaire, each with a five-point Likert scale, allowing users to rate their agreement or disagreement. The SUS score is calculated by converting the raw scores from the Likert scale and then multiplying the sum by 2.5, resulting in a score between 0 and 100, where a higher score indicates greater perceived usability.
30-60 days after clinical decision support tool (PREVENT) implementation

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Columbia University

Collaborators

National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)
Visiting Nurse Service of New York

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Maxim Topaz, PhD, Associate Professor of Nursing at CUMC

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)

August 1, 2023

Primary Completion (Actual)

April 1, 2024

Study Completion (Actual)

May 1, 2024

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

October 18, 2019

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 21, 2019

First Posted (Actual)

October 23, 2019

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimated)

October 8, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 22, 2025

Last Verified

September 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • AAAS7265
  • 1R01NR018831-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

No sharing planned

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

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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