Implementation of an Accessible Healthcare Model (ACHD STRONG): Comparing Nurse and Physician Lead Healthcare Transition Education in a RE-AIM Framework

While people born with congenital heart disease (CHD) are living longer lives, the CDC estimates that 4 in 10 of those adults have disabilities and worse outcomes than those with heart defects alone. The investigators found that patients with disabilities were also at higher risk of being lost in the transition from pediatric to adult healthcare. Some adolescent patients with CHD and their families fear the transition to adult healthcare more than open heart surgery. Interventions to improve access for these high-risk patients are urgently needed. Additionally, half of patients face disabilities in their lifetime and are more likely to require emergency surgical procedures, be admitted to intensive care, and die prematurely. So, while CHD affects 1% of the population, it represents more than 10% of healthcare expenditures in the United States. This disparity must be addressed to improve healthcare transition for all patients, up to 63% of whom disengage from cardiac care as adults. 83% of CHD patients experience communication, mobility, and psychosocial complications not accounted for in existing transition tools. Accessible care is useable by the greatest number of people but is specifically designed for those with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities, and fewer high-risk patients will be lost if the individual, health, and community factors that make care accessible are addressed. Patients find themselves in a disability-health paradox: aging into a system of care not designed for them. Reducing the burden of CHD transition without addressing disability reinforces outcome disparities.

This study involves:

• On-Study Procedures

  • participants will be asked their preference for contact for relevant follow-up (text, phone, email)
  • Both patients and providers may receive a copy of the QPL and aTRA prior to their clinic visit. All enrolled consenting patients may be observed during their clinic visit by a member of the study team.
  • Accessible Care Model Visit: Accessible care activities will be performed by the provider following the patient participants enrollment in the study and may be observed by study staff.
  • The goal is to use areas of strength, and allow youth to prioritize areas of interest, to generate action toward transition from pediatric to adult healthcare by age 26, a period when most healthcare and insurance systems require transition. Once the patient has completed their portion, the provider completes 6 items in the aTRA.
  • Data on care processes will be abstracted from the participant's medical records or the observation
  • Participants will be interviewed after the clinic visit.

• Adaptive Transition Education Procedures

  • Recruitment Interviews (3-10 patient participants plus their providers to complete 30-60 minute interviews)
  • Identification and adaptive transition education activities will take place within approximately a month of the study wave and the knowledge gained will help to improve subsequent study waves
  • Participating Patient-Support Person Interviews - Patients, and their support person if present, may complete a 30-60 minute structured or unstructured interviews following the education session in a clinical encounter.
  • The first 5 dyadic interviews will be analyzed to refocus interview questions and conduct additional interviews until saturation over the three phases of the study.
  • Participating Patient-Support Person Surveys - Participants will complete a survey led by the study team member to identify factors hypothesized to affect transition including age, ethnicity, race, education, transportation, distance from home to clinic, other children at home, plans for care in the transition from pediatric to adult care (about 10% of enrolled patients).
  • Participating Provider Interviews and surveys - Before the end of each wave, a brief (15-20 minute) unstructured interview will be conducted with the healthcare team

• Unstructured and semi-structured interviews

  • Semi-structured interviewing is based on the use of an interview guide which is revised over the course of the study.
  • Unstructured interviewing is used both as a form of primary data collection and to develop semi-structured interview or survey questions. It is particularly useful know about the lived experience of a participant.

• Clinical Database Review

  • The clinical database is the Clinical Database for Adolescents in Transition of Care Education was created in 2020 when the program initiated as a quality improvement effort to prevent youth from dropping out of care in adulthood. Records contained go back to 1995 and are prospectively added. It's purpose is to support a QI/QA project to monitor and improve the transition of pediatric CHD patients to adult care.

Study Aims:

• Aim 1: Maximize feasibility of adopting, and acceptability of implementing, the accessible healthcare model, Accessible Congenital Heart Disease Survivor Transition Readiness For Long-Term Health (ACHD STRONG), for providers. Determine which team members best support transition education and optimize their input and involvement.
• Aim 2: Test the model among diverse patients and families to iteratively co-design accessible care. Work with our community partners, patients, and families to revise our toolkit and implementation plan.