Clinical trial NCT06969196: Artificial Intelligence-Generated Written Communication for Families of Intensive Care Unit Patients
Official title: Artificial Intelligence-Generated Written Communication for Families of Intensive Care Unit Patients - A Pilot Study
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: NOT_YET_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Communication
ICU
Lead sponsor: Rush University Medical Center
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2025-05-13
Enrollment: 40
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: Our research group has developed an approach for providing families of ICU patients with daily written summaries of care as a supplement to traditional verbal communication. Written summaries describe the patient's main ICU problems and management plan and are delivered to families each day. Despite the benefits of written communication to both the family and clinician experience, the main barrier to implementing this communication approach is the time required for clinicians to create a written summary. For the proposed pilot study, the investgators will ask ICU clinicians to identify patients and respective families for whom there has been a challenge with communication. The investigators will ask ICU clinicians to edit AI-generated written summaries for content and clarity before they are delivered to families. The investigators hypothesize that this process will acceptable and feasible for ICU clinicians and families.


Eligibility criteria: Surrogate Inclusion

* One self-identified adult decision maker for an adult medical ICU patient cared for on the 10W ICU
* Member of the primary ICU team believes the respective patient will require at least three additional days of ICU care
* Member of the primary ICU team has identified at least one communication challenge with the patient's surrogate(s) including but not limited to:

  1. Complex medical issues requiring frequent updates to families
  2. Complex family dynamics (i.e., multiple involved family members)
  3. Increased anxiety/stress of surrogate(s)
  4. Difficult to provide updates to family members because they do not visit ICU regularly or are hard to reach by phone

Surrogate Exclusion

* Surrogate cannot read or understand English
* Surrogate is unwilling or unable to participate in study procedures
* Patient is decisional and refuses to allow surrogate participation

Clinician Inclusion • Advanced practice provider (APP) on the medical ICU team on the 10W ICU

Clinician Exclusion

• None

Primary outcomes:
measure: Communication Quality (Clinicians)
timeFrame: Through study completion, an average of one week
measure: Communication Quality (Families/Surrogates)
timeFrame: Average one week after enrollment
measure: Acceptability of intervention
timeFrame: Average one week after enrollment
measure: Feasibility of intervention
timeFrame: Through study completion, an average of one week
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
measure: Analysis of Individual Interviews
timeFrame: Average one week after enrollment
Locations:
Study officials:
References:
citation: Lee JJ, Mathur S, Gerhart J, Glover CM, Ritz E, Basapur S, Greenberg JA. Written communication and the ICU team experience (WRITE): A pre-post intervention study. Intensive Crit Care Nurs. 2024 Oct;84:103753. doi: 10.1016/j.iccn.2024.103753. Epub 2024 Jun 25.
citation: Greenberg JA, Basapur S, Quinn TV, Bulger JL, Schwartz NH, Oh SK, Ritz EM, Glover CM, Shah RC. Daily Written Care Summaries for Families of Critically Ill Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Crit Care Med. 2022 Sep 1;50(9):1296-1305. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0000000000005583. Epub 2022 May 23.
citation: Bulger JL, Quinn TV, Glover CM, Basapur S, Shah RC, Greenberg JA. Written Care Summaries Facilitate Communication Between Families and Providers of ICU Patients: A Pilot Study. Crit Care Explor. 2021 Jul 13;3(7):e0473. doi: 10.1097/CCE.0000000000000473. eCollection 2021 Jul.