Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHRSS) Encounter Notification Service Pilot Project

The University of Hong Kong (HKU)

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Health Care Recipient; Home-dwelling Elderly

Treatments: Behavioral: Encounter notification service

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04186351

MYCARER 20191108

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study evaluates the value of the automated notification service that allows more timely information access and sharing. A 12-month RCT will be conducted to determine the efficacy of the provision of the service to an elderly care and service provider in improving care and health outcomes of the elderly. Researchers will also examine whether the notification service will better support the carers for the coordination and prioritization of care and service delivery.

Full description

A research team at the University of Hong Kong is commissioned to conduct a study of the efficacy of providing an automated notification service, i.e., the "Encounter Notification Service," via the Electronic Health Record Sharing System (eHRSS) to an elderly caring and service provider that aims to facilitate more timely provision and coordination of healthcare services for home-dwelling elderly. With the access to the automated notification service containing up-to-date encounter information of the elderly in the eHRSS (e.g. discharge date from the public hospital, outpatient appointments), it is expected that the elderly caring and service provider can improve its allocation of resources and prioritize the provision of service to elderly patients who are in need, i.e., during the transition of care. As a result, the caring support and services provided by the elderly caring and service provider to the elderly can be more timely and effective, and an improvement in patient health outcomes can be expected.

To obtain evidence to determine the value of the automated notification service, a systematic study of the efficacy is suggested. Thus, researchers set out to conduct a 12-month randomized controlled trial (RCT) to examine whether the provision of the automated notification service to the caring and service provider will result in improvements in care and health outcomes of the elderly. Also, researchers will assess whether the notification service will better support the carers for the coordination and prioritization of care and service provision and improve workflow and administrative procedures amongst different sectors.

In this pilot study, the Senior Citizen Home Safety Association (SCHSA) is the participated elderly caring and service provider.

Enrollment: 864 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• are aged 18 years or older
• have registered in eHRSS as healthcare recipients and given consent for sharing their records in the eHRSS with the SCHSA
• are able to understand spoken Cantonese

Exclusion criteria

• with mental incapacity
• with hearing difficulties

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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864 participants in 2 patient groups

Encounter notification service

Experimental group

Description:

For participants randomized to the intervention group, their encounter information stored in the eHRSS will be provided to the SCHSA via the automated notification service. Healthcare professionals of the SCHSA would access the electronic health record and provide caring support and services via telephone calls during the 12-month study period.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Encounter notification service

Usual care service

No Intervention group

Description:

For participants randomized in the control group, no notification will be sent to the SCHSA. Usual care service will be provided during the 12-month study period. In addition, each control participant will receive placebo phone calls at least once every three months (e.g., the calls could be about greeting and general checking).