Clinical trial NCT03431259: Inpatient Enrollment of Patient Portal App
Official title: Does Inpatient Enrollment Into a Patient Communication App (Patient Gateway) Result in Improved Follow-up and Survey Completion Rates After Orthopaedic Trauma?
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Orthopedic Disorder
Lead sponsor: Massachusetts General Hospital
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2018-02-13
Enrollment: 232
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: OTHER

Brief summary: This study aims to determine if inpatient enrollment into a patient communication app improves clinic follow-up of orthopedic trauma patients and improves survey completion rates after orthopedic trauma.

Detailed description: Follow-up in trauma is historically poor. As a result, outcomes from trauma are difficult to collect via surveys and are often significantly influenced by selection bias. Patient interaction apps like Patient Gateway are thought to facilitate greater participant involvement and adherence to treatment regimens. The investigators will explore if inpatient enrollment into Patient Gateway would improve clinic follow-up rates. Increasing follow-up rates could improve the quality of care delivered.

In addition, self-administered survey questionnaires are an important data collection tool in clinical practice, public health research and epidemiology. However, survey completion rates are typically poor in orthopaedic trauma.

With the evaluation of modern technology, electronic applications are being increasingly used in both hospital and personal settings. In outpatient clinics, questionnaires to measure outcomes and monitor quality of care are administered by staff members using hospital owned tablet devices. Recently, applications to complete these surveys on personal devices have been developed.

In a recent Cochrane review on the comparison of self-administered survey questionnaire responses collected using mobile apps versus other methods it was concluded that there are no data available on response rates. The investigators will attempt to address this question.

All Patient Gateway naïve patients aged 18 years or older able to consent for themselves and admitted to the hospital for an orthopedic condition with the need for outpatient follow-up will be invited to participate in this study. Exclusion criteria will be patients unable to consent for themselves, inability to communicate in English, and no possession of a smartphone.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* admitted to the hospital for an orthopedic condition with the need for outpatient follow-up
* able to consent for themselves

Exclusion Criteria:

* unable to consent for themselves
* inability to communicate in English
* no possession of a smartphone

Primary outcomes:
measure: Return to Clinic
timeFrame: 3 months postoperative
measure: Use of Any the Patient Gateway Portal at 3 Months
timeFrame: 3 months postoperative
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Boston
country: United States
facility: Massachusetts General Hospital
state: Massachusetts
Study officials:
References:
citation: Bhashyam AR, Bansal M, McGovern MM, van der Vliet QMJ, Heng M. In-hospital Enrollment Into an Electronic Patient Portal Results in Improved Follow-up After Orthopedic Surgery: Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Perioper Med. 2022 Aug 11;5(1):e37148. doi: 10.2196/37148.