A Web Application for Improving Communication on Hemodialysis Rounds

University of Alberta

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 3

Conditions: Hemodialysis

Treatments: Behavioral: Web-App; Behavioral: Paper

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03605875

Pro00076483

Details and patient eligibility

About

To evaluate a web application tool that hemodialysis patients can use outside of dialysis time to log and prioritize their concerns for the nephrologists. Specifically, the investigators will compare the usability of a web application tool to a structured paper form. The investigators will also use data from semi-structured interviews to better understand the experience and acceptability of the web app among patient participants randomized to the web application and among participating nephrologists.

Primary outcome

-Usability (effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction)

Secondary outcomes

-Quality of the patient-physician interaction (Communication Assessment Tool (CAT-14))

Full description

Usability is defined as Effectiveness (>70%)

• Number of people submitting a concern/ number of people with opportunity to submit a concern
• Number of concerns entered/number of times concern was satisfactorily addressed

Efficiency

• Proportion of non-completed tasks (<70%)
• The amount of time to complete one concern

Satisfaction

• Semistructured interviews
• Usability survey

Enrollment: 77 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Chronic in-center hemodialysis patients in Edmonton, Alberta and Winnipeg, Manitoba
• Able to provide consent, understand and read English or have a family member that can do this for them

Exclusion criteria

• Planning to change modality within the next year

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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77 participants in 2 patient groups

Web-App

Experimental group

Description:

A customized web-app tool to be used by patients to communicate concerns to their nephrologist

Treatment:

Behavioral: Web-App

Paper

Active Comparator group

Description:

A customized paper tool to be used by patients to communicate concerns to their nephrologist

Treatment:

Behavioral: Paper