Pilot Study Exploring the Feasibility, Acceptability, and Impact of Medically Tailored Meals on Post-Discharge Recovery in Patients With Heart Failure (HF-MTM)

April 7, 2026 updated by: University of Pennsylvania

HF-MTM Pilot: Pilot Study Exploring the Feasibility, Acceptability, and Impact of Medically Tailored Meals on Post-Discharge Recovery in Patients With Heart Failure

The goal of this interventional pilot study is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of medically tailored meals (MTM) on post-discharge recovery in patients with heart failure for Penn Medicine patients in Philadelphia and Lancaster through two pilots.

Study Overview

Status

Enrolling by invitation

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Pilot 1: Will enroll 30 eligible Penn Medicine patients to receive 4 weeks of medically tailored meals (MTMs) directly to their door. Patients will be given the opportunity to choose to receive 7/14/21 meals from the MTM provider for the duration of their participation in the 4 week pilot.

Pilot 1 participants will be asked to complete a baseline survey, and end of study survey, and an end of study semi-structured interview.

Pilot 2: Will expand upon the learnings from Pilot 1 and be a larger scale longer Food is Medicine (FIM) intervention with patients receiving 8 weeks of MTM deliveries directly to their door. As with Pilot 1, patients will be given the opportunity to choose to receive 7/14/21 meals from the MTM provider for the duration of their participation in the 8 week pilot.

Pilot 2 participants will be asked to complete a baseline survey, a mid-point survey at 4 weeks, and an end of study survey and semi-structured interview.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Estimated)

85

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
    • Pennsylvania
      • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
        • Penn Medicine

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

  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Age ≥ 18 years old
  • Have a primary diagnosis of health failure based on ICD code I50* with active hospitalization at time of enrollment
  • Must be insured by Medicaid or Medicare or dual eligible
  • Ability to read and speak English
  • Ability to provide informed consent

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Are on hospice care or reside in an acute or skilled nursing facility
  • Are undergoing evaluation for advanced HF treatments including heart transplant or ventricular assist devices
  • Are unable to complete data collection due to cognitive decline or disability (based on the electronic health record or referring provider assessment)

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

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Medically Tailored Meals
Participants can choose to receive a weekly delivery of 7, 14, or 21 medically tailored meals at no cost to them for 4 weeks.
Other: Medically Tailored Meals
Medically tailored meals to provide essential tailored nutrition for patients recovering from a heart failure hospitalization

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Feasibility of the MTM intervention
Time Frame: From enrollment to the end of the intervention at 4 weeks for Pilot 1
The % of meals successfully delivered to the patient, where a 75% rate of successful delivery indicates feasibility.
From enrollment to the end of the intervention at 4 weeks for Pilot 1
Acceptability of the MTM intervention as measured by the Net Promoter Score
Time Frame: At the end of the intervention at 4 weeks for Pilot 1.
Will evaluate the acceptability of the intervention among patients through the Net Promoter Score (scale of 0 to 10; 9-10 being promoters, 7-8 being passives, and 0-6 being detractors)
At the end of the intervention at 4 weeks for Pilot 1.

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

University of Pennsylvania

Collaborators

American Heart Association

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)

January 1, 2026

Primary Completion (Estimated)

June 30, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

June 30, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 17, 2025

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 25, 2025

First Posted (Actual)

November 26, 2025

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

April 8, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 7, 2026

Last Verified

April 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 859165

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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