Clinical trial NCT05156840: Telehealth for Discharge Outcomes in Children
Official title: Telehealth for Discharge Outcomes in Children: A Feasibility Study
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: WITHDRAWN
Conditions: Pediatric Hospital Discharge
Telehealth
Keywords: telehealth
hospital discharge
pediatric
telemedicine
Lead sponsor: University of California, Davis
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2021-12-14
Enrollment: 0
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Observational model: COHORT
Time perspective: PROSPECTIVE
Sampling method: NON_PROBABILITY_SAMPLE
Study population: This study will conduct surveys and interviews to evaluate the feasibility of a telehealth follow-up visit between parents/guardians and pediatric hospitalists of children discharged from the University of California Davis Children's Hospital's pediatric hospitalist service. Telehealth follow-up visits will be offered to discharging pediatric patients at the discretion of the pediatric hospitalist who is discharging the patient.

Brief summary: This study will test the feasibility of a telehealth follow-up visit for patients and their caregivers who were recently discharged from a general pediatric inpatient unit.

Detailed description: Patient transitions from hospital to home have increasingly become recognized as a critical opportunity to promote patient safety and high quality care, both at University of California Davis Medical Center and nationwide. With over 16,000 children discharged from U.S. hospitals each day and a rate of 1 in 5 experiencing adverse events related to this process, it is estimated that hospital-to-home transition-related adverse events affect over 1.1 million children annually. The quality of hospital discharge also affects hospital readmission rates, length of hospital stay, and parental satisfaction.

Discharge transition difficulties stem largely from care coordination failures throughout the hospital-to-home transition. The investigators recently conducted a qualitative study analyzing perspectives from parents and physicians of 20 children readmitted within 30 days of hospital discharge. The study identified a theme of caregivers having difficulty re-connecting to the child's medical team for ongoing care after discharge. When problems arose, caregivers reported challenges in knowing who to contact, when to reach out for help, and how to navigate the health system to prevent readmission.

The advent of telehealth presents a unique opportunity to provide seamless follow-up for families following hospital discharge. Although telehealth has not previously been studied as a means of providing pediatric follow-up care after hospital discharge, similar methods of providing post-discharge hospital follow-up, including nurse- or physician-led phone calls and nurse home visits, were highly regarded by families, but failed to impact readmission rates. Telehealth provides a unique advantage over these alternate interventions by allowing face-to-face interaction via videoconference between the patient, caregiver, and hospital physician, who is already familiar with the patient's disease course and overall trajectory. At the investigators' site, although telehealth is readily available for use in most any clinical setting, it is not commonly used for hospital discharge follow-up. Therefore, this study proposes to test the feasibility of a telehealth follow-up visit for patients and their caregivers who were recently discharged from a general pediatric inpatient unit.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Parents/legal guardians of patients recently discharged from the University of California Davis Children's Hospital pediatric hospitalist service, who were offered a telehealth follow-up visit following their child's discharge
* Pediatric hospitalists who discharged the above patients and offered a telehealth follow-up visit following discharge

Exclusion Criteria:

• Parents/legal guardians of children discharged from an intensive care or subspecialty service

Primary outcomes:
measure: Feasibility Objective 1: Telehealth visit offered on hospital discharge
timeFrame: Within 7 days of hospital discharge
measure: Feasibility Objective 2: Parent agreement to engage in telehealth visit
timeFrame: Within 7 days of hospital discharge
measure: Feasibility Objective 3: Successful completion of telehealth
timeFrame: Within 14 days of hospital discharge
measure: Feasibility Objective 4: Lack of technical issues
timeFrame: Within 14 days of hospital discharge
measure: Feasibility Objective 5: Survey response rates
timeFrame: Within 30 days of hospital discharge
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Hospital Readmission
timeFrame: Within 30 days of hospital discharge
measure: Hospital Length of Stay
timeFrame: Within 7 days of hospital discharge
measure: 3-Item Care Transitions Measure
timeFrame: Within 30 days of hospital discharge
Other outcomes:
Locations:
Study officials:
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