EFFECTIVENESS: Hopewell Hospitalist: A Video Game Intervention to Increase Advance Care Planning by Hospitalists

Dartmouth Health

Status: Terminated

Conditions: Advance Care Planning

Treatments: Behavioral: Hopewell Hospitalist Video Game

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; NIH

Identifiers

NCT04881968

STUDY00031186 - B

P01AG019783 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Hopewell Hospitalist is a theory-based adventure video game designed to increase the likelihood that a physician will engage in an advance care planning (ACP) conversation with a patient over the age of 65. Drawing on the theory of narrative engagement, players assume the persona of a hospitalist physician and navigate a series of clinical encounters with seriously-ill patients over the age of 65. Players experience the consequences of having (or not having) ACP conversations in a timely fashion. The planned study is a crossover phase III trial testing the effectiveness of providing physicians with a link to a free version of Hopewell Hospitalist as a means for increasing ACP rates measured by ACP billing frequency.

Enrollment: 1,261 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Hospitalist Inclusion Criteria:

• Employed by Sound
• Not previously included in the Efficacy Trial Arm of the study.

Hospitalist Exclusion Criteria:

• Not employed by Sound
• Does not provide informed consent
• Previously included in the Efficacy Trial Arm of the study.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Sequential Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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1,261 participants in 2 patient groups

Control: Usual Care

No Intervention group

Description:

The control arm occurs prior to receipt of the video game intervention and reflects usual care. Each hospitalist 'crosses over' from control to intervention at a single time point.

Video Game Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Each hospitalist 'crosses over' from control to intervention at a single time point by receiving a link to the Hopewell Hospitalist game via email and logging in to play the video game.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Hopewell Hospitalist Video Game