Short Message Service Based Patient Education in Spine Patients (SMS)

The Role of Postoperative SMS Based Patient Education in Spine Patients

The investigators primary objective is to evaluate whether an SMS based patient education program improves patient satisfaction.

Study Overview

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Conditions: Patient Satisfaction
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: SMS

Detailed Description

Back and neck related complaints effect as much as 11% of the U.S. population and are one of the most common presenting complaints at health care visits. A small subset of these patients receive spine surgery of various types in the hopes of alleviating symptoms that are recalcitrant to conservative management. The utilization of spine surgery has been rapidly increasing.2 An estimated 413,000 spinal fusions were performed in the U.S. in 2008 accounting for almost $34 billion in charges.

Patient satisfaction has become an increasingly important measure of healthcare quality. This paradigm shift is evident in the changing reimbursement models used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) is a survey-based assessment of patient satisfaction that was initially developed in 2002. Currently, HCAHPS provides the ability to compare patient satisfaction with the care they receive at various healthcare systems across the country. These scores are used as part of a value-based purchasing initiative that can lead to a hospital gaining or losing as much as 1.5% of their annual medicare revenue as a result of patient satisfaction based incentives. This presents an important opportunity to optimize patient satisfaction in order to both improve patient care and preserve hospital income.

A number of novel text-message based applications have been developed for healthcare use in various settings. In the surgical setting text messaging has been used to provide pre-operative education modules, as well as to track medication adherence after transplant. This study aims to develop and critically evaluate, a text-messaging based patient education system aimed at improving patient satisfaction with the post-operative course after spine surgery.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 608
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Utah
    • Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, 84108
      • University of Utah Orthopedics

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 90 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients 18 years and over undergoing spine surgery at the University of Utah

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients under 18 years of age.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control; No other non-standard of care activities will be performed
Experimental: Intervention; Will be signed up for the automated short message service (SMS)	Other: SMS; Patients who are randomized to the intervention arm will be signed up for the automated SMS program. This cohort will receive text messages after surgery, timed from the day of discharge through 14 days post-op. Patients in this cohort will receive text messages each day. The number of text messages varies on patient interest and "yes" responses to see additional information.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
SpineFriend Postoperative Questionnaire	Patient satisfaction will consist of the SpineFriend Postoperative Questionnaire	Follow Up Visits at 2 or 6 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Utah
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Ryan Spiker, M.D., University Of Utah

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): July 28, 2017
• Primary Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2025
• Study Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 1, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 1, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): July 7, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 23, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 19, 2024
• Last Verified: April 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Spine Surgery; Patient Satisfaction; Short Message Service (SMS)
• Other Study ID Numbers: 98177

Drug and device information, study documents

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