Empowering Veterans to Communicate With Healthcare Providers

Northwestern University

Status: Terminated

Conditions: Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 3

Treatments: Behavioral: CKD-Question Prompt Sheet

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT03529071

1212869-1

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this VA Innovation Seed project is to test the best approach for the delivery, feasibility, and usability of a patient-centered CKD-QPS to facilitate better Veteran understanding and engagement in their CKD-care in nephrology clinics at two geographically distinct VA hospitals (Chicago and Dallas) through on-going user feedback in real time.

Full description

The goal of this VA Innovation Seed project is to test the best approach for the delivery, feasibility, and usability of a patient-centered CKD-QPS to facilitate better Veteran understanding and engagement in their CKD-care in nephrology clinics at two geographically distinct VA hospitals (Chicago and Dallas) through on-going user feedback in real time. Specifically, the pilot goals are to:

1. Test the process of delivering the CKD-QPS into clinical workflow to optimize patient and provider use of the QPS. We will rely on user (patient and provider) feedback about the feasibility of using the QPS in a real world VA environment (e.g., time required for visits using the QPS, impact on clinical workflow, patient and providers' preferences for delivering the QPS to Veterans with CKD) to adjust delivery throughout the project period.
2. Obtain continuous provider and patient feedback during the project period about QPS feasibility, use, patient participation, and provider information-giving and encouragement of question-asking during outpatient clinic visits.
3. Test how well iterative adjustments to delivery can help improve CKD-QPS patient-reported outcome measures (e.g., satisfaction with provider).

The multi-site study will take place at Hines, VA, and at VA North Texas Health System, in Dallas, TX. The intervention entails providing the CKD-Question Prompt Sheet to patients to use during patient-nephrologist (or Nurse Practitioner or Physician Assistant) clinic visits. The CKD-QPS is a 31-item list of questions about treatment options for CKD. The QPS is designed to empower patients to ask questions by reminding them of questions that they may consider asking.

Data collection entails pre-post clinic visit surveys among CKD patients, a post-clinic interview with CKD patients and nephrologists (separately), and audio-recording the clinic visit.

The knowledge gained from this study may improve other patients' satisfaction with care and communication with providers.

Enrollment: 8 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Adult (age 18+) English-speaking CKD patients stage 3 (eGFR = 30-70 mL/min) who are scheduled for a clinic visit will be eligible for participation.

   1. Up to 60 will receive the QPS and all data collection activities
   2. Up to 10 will be audio recorded only

2. Nephrologists (or Nurse Practitioners or Physician Assistants) seeing CKD patients in routine clinic visits will be eligible for participation at Hines, VA.

Exclusion criteria

1. CKD patients who are non-English speaking, blind, hard of hearing or deaf, unable to read, and/or who are cognitively impaired will not be eligible for participation.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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8 participants in 2 patient groups

CKD-Question Prompt Sheet

Experimental group

Description:

Study participants will receive the CKD-QPS.

Treatment:

Behavioral: CKD-Question Prompt Sheet

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Individuals will not receive any intervention or surveys.