My Team of Care: a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial of an Online Communication Tool for Collaborative Care (Loop)

Mount Sinai Hospital, Canada

Status: Completed

Conditions: Neoplasms; Communication

Treatments: Other: Loop

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02372994

410001734

Details and patient eligibility

About

This project will pilot and test a new online communication tool, Loop, developed within a research framework with participatory and user-centred design. This pilot trial focuses on advanced cancer as an example of complex care. Cancer care involves many healthcare providers, spanning hospital to home. There is no organized way for them to communicate. Loop is a practical tool for ongoing collaboration in the patient's actual team of care that engages patients. The study will answer the questions: does Loop improve communication efficiency, engage patients and family physicians, and show early benefits in quality and health care costs?

Enrollment: 49 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Patients with Stage IV cancer, or Patients with stage III cancer and poor prognosis as determined by a physician (>3 months but <2 years)
2. Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status score ≤2
3. Each patient must have at least two healthcare providers, including an attending oncologist or palliative care physician
4. Patient and, if applicable, family caregiver must be ≥18 years of age
5. Literacy and language capacity and competency to provide informed consent
6. Patient or caregiver must have access to a computer and the internet

Exclusion criteria

1. Patients without the capacity to participate in use of the online tool, and do not have a caregiver who can engage in use of the tool on their behalf
2. Participants without the capacity to participate in evaluation of outcome measures, including, but not limited to, online and paper-based multiple-choice questions, checklists, and visual analogue scales, and do not have a family caregiver who can complete outcome measures
3. A potential candidate for or currently receiving hormone therapy for breast or prostate cancer
4. Patients with a prognosis of <3 months as determined by attending physician
5. Patients with impaired mental status as previously assessed by a physician or judged by research staff using the Bedside Confusion Scale
6. It has been determined that the patient is participating in another study precluding them from taking part in this study, as determined by an agreed-upon algorithm, tracked and managed by study coordinators

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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49 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention Group

Experimental group

Description:

The randomization is at the level of attending healthcare professional who identifies patients for recruitment. For each participant in the intervention arm, a secure space (called a Patient Loop) is created in the online clinical communication system. A Patient Loop can be accessed by the patient, their caregiver, and the healthcare providers who have permission to do so through an algorithm of invitation, authentication and careful partitioning. In each Patient Loop, team members can post messages that can be read and responded to by the entire team. Each Patient Loop consists of a patient, their caregiver and at least two healthcare professionals.

Treatment:

Other: Loop

Control Group

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants receive usual care.