Advanced Heart Care at Home (AHCAH)

University of Pennsylvania

Status: Completed

Conditions: Quality Improvement; Heart Failure; Health Care Utilization; Palliative Care

Treatments: Other: Clinician nudge or opt out approach for AHCAH liaison visit

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03724695

831733

Details and patient eligibility

About

End-of-life (EOL) care for heart failure (HF) patients includes high healthcare utilization and costs, in part due to the lack of integration of optimal HF management and home-based palliative care. In a pilot quality improvement project of clinician "nudges" to enroll seriously ill HF patients in a home-based, integrated HF and palliative care platform, the investigators demonstrated decreased healthcare utilization and costs and increased hospice utilization among seriously ill HF patients. The investigators propose a pragmatic randomized trial for clinicians of seriously ill HF patients admitted to three University of Pennsylvania Health System Hospitals, randomly assigning an opt-in approach (usual care) versus a "nudge" or opt-out approach of a visit from an Advanced Heart Care at Home (AHCAH) liaison to clinicians of eligible patients to discuss and enroll in the AHCAH program, to rigorously and scientifically evaluate clinical, utilization, and cost outcomes among high-risk HF patients at the EOL, and to promote physician uptake of best practices.

Enrollment: 709 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. At least 18 years of age
2. Reside within Caring Way's geographic catchment
3. Heart Failure ICD code from any previous healthcare encounter (inpatient or outpatient) in the 12 months prior to index hospitalization
4. Admitted to a cardiology or hospitalist service
5. Palliative Connect score greater than 0.3
6. Index hospitalization during study period

Exclusion criteria

1. Less than 18 years of age
2. Pregnant women
3. Incarcerated patients
4. Homeless patients
5. Reside outside of Caring Way's geographic catchment
6. Patients without an identifiable primary physician for AHCAH staff to communicate with as determined by the AHCAH liaison via EPIC
7. Prior hospitalization during study period

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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709 participants in 2 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Usual Care

AHCAH Nudge

Experimental group

Description:

The investigators have developed methods for sending "nudges" to clinicians via secure text messages to primary teams to alert them that their patient was identified as high-risk for 6-month mortality and that an AHCAH liaison would visit their patient to discuss the AHCAH program and to facilitate enrollment if the patient was amenable. The investigators propose that these secure text messages would be sent to the teams of patients randomized to the intervention by the AHCAH liaison within 72 hours of eligibility identification (to allow for the liaison not being available over the weekend). The investigator team will track all aspects of messaging and timing. Clinicians can choose to opt out a patient from the liaison visit and AHCAH enrollment within a two-hour timeframe.

Treatment:

Other: Clinician nudge or opt out approach for AHCAH liaison visit