Text Messaging in Healthcare Utilization

Saint Louis University (SLU)

Status: Completed

Conditions: Text Messaging

Treatments: Behavioral: Enhanced Standard of Care (ESoC); Behavioral: Enhanced Standard of Care (ESoC) + Text

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03235830

25160

Details and patient eligibility

About

The overall goal is to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of using text messages as an educational tool in order to improve health care utilization among the parents and caregivers of newborns; in particular, the investigators seek to understand how educational text messages counteract the effects of low health literacy as it relates to non-urgent visits to the emergency department.

Full description

Health care utilization is a issue germane to health care providers, insurers, and patients alike. Reducing non-urgent visits to the emergency department (ED) and primary care providers can improve both the quality and cost of care. There are barriers, however, to educating patients about more appropriate health care utilization. Low health literacy is one such barrier, particularly for caregivers of pediatric patients. Research reveals that up to half of caregivers seeking treatment at the ED have low levels of health literacy; levels that can make it more difficult to not only make sound decisions, but also provide effective follow-up care. Moreover, low levels of literacy perpetuate a cycle of seeking care for non-urgent conditions. Education initiatives designed to counteract the effects of low health literacy on health care utilization have been shown to reduce non-urgent ED visits by as much as 80%. These education interventions, while effective, are complex, costly, or time-intensive. For example, home visits by a nurse, parenting classes, and video tools are all shown to reduce non-urgent ED use, but each poses a unique problem for implementation in high volume, urban, pediatric primary care clinic. To date, no study has examined the effectiveness of text messaging as a possible avenue for educating caregivers about issues related to health care utilization. Text messaging has been shown to support behavioral change, and represents a fast and cost-effective alternative to more labor-intensive and expensive alternatives.

Danis Pediatrics, the pediatric practice of Saint Louis University physicians within SSM Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center (CGCMC), serves as a medical home to primarily urban, low-income patients. In the first half of 2014 alone, there were 5259 visits to the ED by caregivers of patients < 13 months of age. Of those, 520 Danis Pediatrics patients accounted for 919 of those visits. In short, just under 1 in 5 visits to the CGCMC ED is a Danis patient, and Danis patients visit the ED approximately 2 times in the first year. Previous studies of patients at Danis Pediatrics suggest that this population has access to text messaging and is interested in receiving healthcare-related information from their pediatric provider.

Enrollment: 231 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 15 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• English-speaking parents and/or guardians of newborns (aged 0 to 2 months)
• Receive primary care at Danis Pediatrics
• Must have reliable mobile phone service and be able to receive text messages

Exclusion criteria

• Non-English speaking caregivers
• No reliable text messaging service

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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231 participants in 2 patient groups

Enhanced Standard of Care (ESoC)

Active Comparator group

Description:

Subjects received a condensed version of the American Academy of Pediatrics Bright Futures content at their scheduled well-child visits though 6 months of age. The enhanced standard of care (ESoC) materials were added, by members of the research team, to registration packets and were given to caregivers by clinic staff, who were all trained to give the ESoC. For any patients who did not receive ESoC materials at their visit, an age-appropriate ESoC was mailed to the caregiver.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Enhanced Standard of Care (ESoC)

Enhanced Standard of Care (ESoC) + Text

Experimental group

Description:

Subjects assigned to the text messaging intervention group received four educational messages per week until their child was 6 months of age in addition to the ESoC documents. The text messages directly reflected Bright Futures and ESoC content, addressing infant development, safety, care, and the most common causes of nonurgent visits in the first year. Bright Futures content was adapted both for language and length to accommodate character limits and the patient population.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Enhanced Standard of Care (ESoC) + Text