Adapted Hospital Discharge Intervention: the CONNECT Pilot

Boston Medical Center (BMC)

Status: Begins enrollment in 3 months

Conditions: Communication Research

Treatments: Other: Additional post discharge phone call

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT07032818

H-45822

K23MD019068-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Hospital discharge is a dangerous time for patients: one in five will suffer an adverse event, such as a medication error, and nearly 25% will be readmitted within 30 days. This time is even more dangerous for patients with who face communication barriers, including those with non-English language preference (NELP), low health literacy, and the elderly.

The investigators will pilot a post-discharge educational intervention to reinforce written discharge instructions (known as the After Visit Summary or AVS) using a randomized controlled trial design (2:1 intervention: control). The control group will receive current standard of care discharge education which includes a nurse reviewing their AVS and an automated call in English that allows patients to numerically select types of problems/questions that are then escalated to a nurse who should return their call within a few days. The intervention group will receive the standard of care discharge education with the AVS and an additional post-discharge educational call delivered by a registered nurse or other qualified health professional with the option to have written instructions professionally translated and sent via MyChart message--if available in their preferred language.

Enrollment: 60 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Registered language in Epic (written or spoken) is Spanish, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Cape Verdean, or Vietnamese
• Admitted to medicine team at Boston Medical Center (BMC)
• Being discharged home (to the community)

Exclusion criteria

• On airborne infections precautions at time of recruitment
• On C diff precautions at time of recruitment
• On suicide precautions at time of recruitment
• Nurse report of participant displaying cognitive impairment, ongoing delirium, or aggression
• Discharge observed during a prior admission

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

60 participants in 2 patient groups

Educational intervention

Other group

Description:

Participants randomized into this arm will receive current hospital discharge education and an additional post-discharge educational call.

Treatment:

Other: Additional post discharge phone call

Standard of care

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants randomized into this arm will receive current hospital discharge education.