Informing Low-acuity Emergency Department Patients of Non-emergent Resources (2)

Geisinger Health

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Behavior Change Interventions; Emergency Service, Hospital

Treatments: Behavioral: Contact your PCP; Behavioral: Use Intelligent Triage

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT07185828

2024-0183-2

Details and patient eligibility

About

The goal of this campaign is to reduce unnecessary visits to a Geisinger emergency department (ED). In this campaign, patients will be assigned to receive or not receive outreach following ED discharge with a low-acuity visit designation. Outreach will occur via a text message the day after discharge from the ED as well as information added to the patient's after visit summary (AVS). Depending on the assigned condition, it will include calls to see their primary care provider (PCP) or use an Intelligent Triage tool. The study will assess whether ED use within the following 120 days differs across patients in different outreach conditions (current standard practice vs contact your PCP vs use Intelligent Triage). It will also examine whether patients follow through on the message-specific calls to action differently across conditions.

Enrollment: 8,286 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• >= 18 years of age
• Geisinger ED visit rated as low acuity (L4 or L5)
• Discharged from Geisinger ED in past 24 hours

Exclusion criteria

• Cannot be contacted via the communication modality being used in the study (i.e., SMS), due to insufficient/missing contact information in the EHR or because the patient opted out
• Admitted to hospital
• Already included in intervention in past 365 days

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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8,286 participants in 3 patient groups

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

This arm will receive no intervention outside of usual care.

Contact your PCP

Experimental group

Description:

Intervention content emphasizes contacting a primary care provider (content will vary slightly based on whether the patient has a Geisinger PCP)

Treatment:

Behavioral: Contact your PCP

Use Intelligent Triage

Experimental group

Description:

Intervention content emphasizes using Intelligent Triage to assess symptoms.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Use Intelligent Triage