Improving Palliative Care Access Through Technology (ImPAcTT)

July 7, 2021 updated by: Caroline Stephens, University of Utah

Improving Palliative Care Access Through Technology (ImPAcTT): A Multi- Component Pilot Study

This project will focus on developing, optimizing and pilot-testing a multi-component Improving Access Through Technology (ImPAcTT) intervention that leverages existing telehealth technologies to provide staff education; family outreach, engagement and support; care coordination; and resident symptom management and facilitation of goals-of-care discussion.

Study Overview

Status

Suspended

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Almost 1.8 million older Americans live in nursing homes (NH), with estimates that this number will grow to more than 3 million by 2050. NHs are increasingly becoming the place of care and site of death for frail older adults dying from multiple chronic illnesses. Unfortunately, most residents die without the benefit of palliative care (PC) or with palliation delayed until the last days of life.

Unfortunately, hospice services are often the only formal end of life care service available in NHs, and access to hospice enrollment is complicated by financial implications for both NHs and residents.

Telehealth, or remote monitoring of patients through information and communication technologies, is an effective mechanism for addressing the increased demand on health services and has much to offer to people living with and dying from advanced illness. Moreover, numerous studies have demonstrated positive benefits of using telehealth in the NH to improve access to consultants (e.g., neurology, dermatology, psychiatry).

Little is known, however, about the effect of using Telehealth on improving access to PC specialists in the NH setting.

The proposed ImPAcTT intervention employs a secure communications platform that permits multi-person live video, audio, and text message consultations; real-time document sharing and documentation for advanced care planning discussions; and remote virtual assessment capabilities.

The investigator will conduct a pilot implementation trial of ImPAcTT in 3 study nursing homes to evaluate our ability to safely recruit and retain study participants, collect appropriate and accurate data, and determine preliminary estimates of an effect size of the intervention.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Anticipated)

81

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
    • California
      • San Francisco, California, United States, 94143
        • University of California San Francisco - UCSF
    • Utah
      • Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, 84112
        • University of Utah

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

Purposeful sampling will take place in an attempt to collect data from a range of ethnically and racially diverse participants.

INCLUSION CRITERIA:

Primary participant

  • Age >= 18 years
  • English language fluency
  • Palliative Care Consult Screening Tool (PCCS) scoring 9 or above
  • If participant does not demonstrate capacity to consent, he/she must be able to assent to study procedures, be told of plan to approach surrogate and have a legally authorized representative available to provide consent

Family/friend caregivers:

  • Closest relative/next of kin/friend who is involved in the care of his/her loved one before and during the study period
  • English fluency

EXCLUSION CRITERIA:

Primary participant:

  • Enrolled in hospice
  • Unable to assent to study procedures
  • Expresses resistance or dissent to participation or the use of surrogate consent

Family/friend caregiver:

  • Life expectancy < 1 year (e.g., metastatic cancer)
  • Evidence of cognitive impairment or inability to consent to study procedures

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: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: ImPAcTT intervention
Within 48-72 hours of enrollment in the study, the primary participant and family will receive an ImPAcTT Telehealth visit with the PC provider. The provider will conduct a comprehensive PC assessment aligned with the National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care guidelines. Visits, which may include remote physical assessment using a digital stethoscope, dermatoscope, etc., will be documented and transmitted to the NH. Advanced Care Planning (ACP) and goals of care discussions will be facilitated by the ability to virtually share and edit documents, such as the Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST), in real time with primary participants and/or family. The PC provider will conduct follow-up visits 1 week following the initial visit, then on a case-by-case basis.
Other: Telehealth visit
ImPACTT Telehealth visit with the PC provider
No Intervention: Usual care
Participants will receive the standard of care established at the NH.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in Symptom distress (composite measure)
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks

Symptom distress as measured by the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale - ESAS

  • ESAS physical score (total of physical 6 symptoms, score range 0-60)
  • ESAS emotional score (total of 2 emotional symptoms, score range 0-60)
  • ESAS total symptom distress score (physical score + emotional score + well being)

For all symptom distress scores:

High score means: worst outcome Low score means: better outcome
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Change in Symptom impact
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks

Symptom impact as measured by the "Quality of Life at the End of Life" - QUAL-E

Symptom impact subscale:

Minimum value: 3 Maximum value: 15

High score means: worst outcome Low score means: better outcome
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Change in number of completed POLST forms
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Number of Physician's Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment - POLST forms completed
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Type of changes in POLST forms
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Type of changes in Physician's Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment -POLST forms
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Number of In-hospital death
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Number of In-hospital death
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Change in Family Satisfaction
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks

Family Satisfaction as measured by the "Quality of Life at the End of Life - Family" - QUAL-E Fam

Subscale: Relationship with Healthcare Provider [Questions #5-8 with 5 item Likert scales, average of 4 scores] Minimum value: 1 Maximum value: 5

High score means: worst outcome Low score means: better outcome
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Number of residents transitioned to hospice
Time Frame: Last visit - week 12
Number of residents transitioned to hospice
Last visit - week 12
Change in acute care utilization (composite measure)
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Number of ED Visits and number of Hospitalizations
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Change in Functional Status
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks

Functional Status as measured by the PalliativePerformance Scale (PPSv2)

Minimum value: 0% Maximum value: 100%

High score means: better outcome Low score means: worst outcome
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Change in Depression Status
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks

Depression as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9)

Subscales:

- Question 1: Minimum value: 0 Maximum value: 27

High score means: worst outcome Low score means: better outcome

- Question 2: Minimum value: 1 Maximum value: 4

High score means: worst outcome Low score means: better outcome
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Change in Cognitive Status
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks

Cognition as measured by the Montreal - Cognitive Assessment (MoCA)

Minimum value: 0 Maximum value: 30

High score means: better outcome Low score means: worst outcome
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks
Change in Mortality
Time Frame: Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks

Risk for dying within one year as measured by the Flacker Mortality Score

Minimum value: 0 Maximum value: 15.21

High score means: worst outcome Low score means: better outcome
Baseline and Last visit -12 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

University of Utah

Collaborators

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Caroline E Stephens, PhD, RN, University of Utah

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

Helpful Links

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)

February 19, 2018

Primary Completion (Anticipated)

June 30, 2022

Study Completion (Anticipated)

June 30, 2022

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

May 4, 2021

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 7, 2021

First Posted (Actual)

July 20, 2021

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

July 20, 2021

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 7, 2021

Last Verified

July 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • IRB_00129094
  • 5K76AG054862-05 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

YES

IPD Plan Description

Data (complete dataset with full documentation including metadata, protocols, etc) will be made available by the online publication date unless the NIH policy specifies an earlier date. The PI will work the primary mentor to ensure that the study data are submitted to the PCRC De-identified Data Repository. (https://palliativecareresearch.org/corescenters/data-informatics-statistics-core-disc/pcrc-de-identified-data-repository-didr).

This would allow for secondary data analyses of the data to be conducted and support those who need access to these datasets for preliminary data and/or grant proposal preparation. Human subject data will be shared with other investigators within the limits of HIPAA and other patient confidentiality requirements, including the removal of all participant identifiers from all source documents and the use of unique participant identification numbers, and in accordance with PCRC protocols.

IPD Sharing Time Frame

Data will be made available by the online publication date unless the NIH policy specifies an earlier date.

IPD Sharing Access Criteria

This study has specific data and resource sharing plans to make data available both to the community of scientists interested in palliative care and nursing home research to avoid unintentional duplication of research. Moreover, the investigator would welcome collaboration with others who could make use of the Telehealth visit protocols developed in this ImPAcTT project.

IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type

  • STUDY_PROTOCOL
  • SAP
  • ICF
  • ANALYTIC_CODE
  • CSR

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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