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Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine (PRIM-ER): Protocol for a Pragmatic, Cluster-Randomised, Stepped Wedge Design to Test the Effectiveness of Primary Palliative Care Education, Training and Technical Support for Emergency Medicine.

ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION:Emergency departments (ED) care for society's most vulnerable older adults who present with exacerbations of chronic disease at the end of life, yet the clinical paradigm focuses on treatment of acute pathologies. Palliative care interventions in the ED capture high-risk patients at a time of crisis and can dramatically improve patient-centred outcomes. This study aims to implement and evaluate Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine (PRIM-ER) on ED disposition, healthcare utilisation and survival in older adults with serious illness. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:This is the protocol for a pragmatic, cluster-randomised stepped wedge trial to test the effectiveness of PRIM-ER in 35 EDs across the USA. The intervention includes four core components: (1) evidence-based, multidisciplinary primary palliative care education; (2) simulation-based workshops; (3) clinical decision support; and (4) audit and feedback. The study is divided into two phases: a pilot phase, to ensure feasibility in two sites, and an implementation and evaluation phase, where we implement the intervention and test the effectiveness in 33 EDs over 2?years. Using Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data, we will assess the primary outcomes in approximately 300?000 patients: ED disposition to an acute care setting, healthcare utilisation in the 6 months following the ED visit and survival following the index ED visit. Analysis will also determine the site, provider and patient-level characteristics that are associated with variation in impact of PRIM-ER. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:Institutional Review Board approval was obtained at New York University School of Medicine to evaluate the CMS data. Oversight will also be provided by the National Institutes of Health, an Independent Monitoring Committee and a Clinical Informatics Advisory Board. Trial results will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER:NCT03424109; Pre-results.

SUBMITTER: Grudzen CR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6661655 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine (PRIM-ER): Protocol for a Pragmatic, Cluster-Randomised, Stepped Wedge Design to Test the Effectiveness of Primary Palliative Care Education, Training and Technical Support for Emergency Medicine.

Grudzen Corita R CR Brody Abraham A AA Chung Frank R FR Cuthel Allison M AM Mann Devin D McQuilkin Jordan A JA Rubin Ada L AL Swartz Jordan J Tan Audrey A Goldfeld Keith S KS

BMJ open 20190727 7

<h4>Introduction</h4>Emergency departments (ED) care for society's most vulnerable older adults who present with exacerbations of chronic disease at the end of life, yet the clinical paradigm focuses on treatment of acute pathologies. Palliative care interventions in the ED capture high-risk patients at a time of crisis and can dramatically improve patient-centred outcomes. This study aims to implement and evaluate Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine (PRIM-ER) on ED disposition, healt ...[more]

PMID: 31352424

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Project description:BackgroundPalliative care interventions in the ED capture high-risk patients at a time of crisis and can dramatically improve patient-centered outcomes.ObjectiveTo understand the facilitators that contributed to the success of the Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine (PRIM-ER) quality improvement pilot intervention.DesignEffectiveness was evaluated through semi-structured interviews. Reach outcomes were measured by percent of all full-time emergency providers (physicians, physician assistants, nurses) who completed the intervention education components and baseline survey assessing attitudes and knowledge on end-of-life care.ParticipantsEmergency medicine providers affiliated with two medical centers (N = 197). Interviews conducted with six key informants at both institutions.ApproachInterviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using deductive and inductive approaches. Descriptive statistics include reach outcomes and baseline survey results.Key resultsBoth sites successfully implemented all components of the intervention and achieved a high level (> 75%) of intervention reach. Two themes emerged as facilitators to successful effectiveness facilitators of PRIM-ER: (1) institutional leadership support and (2) leveraging established quality improvement (QI) processes. Institutional support included leveraging leadership with authority to (a) mandate trainings; (b) substitute PRIM-ER education for normally scheduled education; and (c) provide protected time to implement intervention components. Effectiveness was also enhanced by capitalizing on existing QI processes which included (a) leveraging interdisciplinary partnerships and communication plans and (b) monitoring performance improvement data.ConclusionsCapitalizing on strong institutional leadership support and established QI processes enhanced the reach and effectiveness of the PRIM-ER pilot. These findings will guide the PRIM-ER researchers in scaling up the intervention in the remaining 33 sites, as well as enhance the planning of other complex quality improvement interventions in clinical settings.Registration detailsClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03424109; Grant Number: AT009844-01.

Project description:BackgroundThe emergency department is a critical juncture in the trajectory of care of patients with serious, life-limiting illness. Implementation of a clinical decision support (CDS) tool automates identification of older adults who may benefit from palliative care instead of relying upon providers to identify such patients, thus improving quality of care by assisting providers with adhering to guidelines. The Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine (PRIM-ER) study aims to optimize the use of the electronic health record by creating a CDS tool to identify high risk patients most likely to benefit from primary palliative care and provide point-of-care clinical recommendations.MethodsA clinical decision support tool entitled Emergency Department Supportive Care Clinical Decision Support (Support-ED) was developed as part of an institutionally-sponsored value based medicine initiative at the Ronald O. Perelman Department of Emergency Medicine at NYU Langone Health. A multidisciplinary approach was used to develop Support-ED including: a scoping review of ED palliative care screening tools; launch of a workgroup to identify patient screening criteria and appropriate referral services; initial design and usability testing via the standard System Usability Scale questionnaire, education of the ED workforce on the Support-ED background, purpose and use, and; creation of a dashboard for monitoring and feedback.ResultsThe scoping review identified the Palliative Care and Rapid Emergency Screening (P-CaRES) survey as a validated instrument in which to adapt and apply for the creation of the CDS tool. The multidisciplinary workshops identified two primary objectives of the CDS: to identify patients with indicators of serious life limiting illness, and to assist with referrals to services such as palliative care or social work. Additionally, the iterative design process yielded three specific patient scenarios that trigger a clinical alert to fire, including: 1) when an advance care planning document was present, 2) when a patient had a previous disposition to hospice, and 3) when historical and/or current clinical data points identify a serious life-limiting illness without an advance care planning document present. Monitoring and feedback indicated a need for several modifications to improve CDS functionality.ConclusionsCDS can be an effective tool in the implementation of primary palliative care quality improvement best practices. Health systems should thoughtfully consider tailoring their CDSs in order to adapt to their unique workflows and environments. The findings of this research can assist health systems in effectively integrating a primary palliative care CDS system seamlessly into their processes of care.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03424109. Registered 6 February 2018, Grant Number: AT009844-01.

Project description:ObjectivesTo examine whether primary care outreach facilitation improves the quality of care for general practice patients from refugee backgrounds.DesignPragmatic, cluster randomised controlled trial, with stepped wedge allocation to early or late intervention groups.Setting, participants31 general practices in three metropolitan areas of Sydney and Melbourne with high levels of refugee resettlement, November 2017 - August 2019.InterventionTrained facilitators made three visits to practices over six months, using structured action plans to help practice teams optimise routines of refugee care.Major outcome measureChange in proportion of patients from refugee backgrounds with documented health assessments (Medicare billing). Secondary outcomes were refugee status recording, interpreter use, and clinician-perceived difficulty in referring patients to appropriate dental, social, settlement, and mental health services.ResultsOur sample comprised 14 633 patients. The intervention was associated with an increase in the proportion of patients with Medicare-billed health assessments during the preceding six months, from 19.1% (95% CI, 18.6-19.5%) to 27.3% (95% CI, 26.7-27.9%; odds ratio, 1.88; 95% CI, 1.42-2.50). The impact of the intervention was greater in smaller practices, practices with larger proportions of patients from refugee backgrounds, recent training in refugee health care, or higher baseline provision of health assessments for such patients. There was no impact on refugee status recording, interpreter use increased modestly, and reported difficulties in refugee-specific referrals to social, settlement and dental services were reduced.ConclusionsLow intensity practice facilitation may improve some aspects of primary care for people from refugee backgrounds. Facilitators employed by local health services could support integrated approaches to enhancing the quality of primary care for this vulnerable population.Trial registrationAustralian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12618001970235 (retrospective).

Project description:BackgroundPalliative care is a medical specialty centered on improving the quality of life (QOL) of patients with complex or life-threatening illnesses. The need for palliative care is increasing and with that the rigorous testing of triage tools that can be used quickly and reliably to identify patients that may benefit from palliative care.MethodsTo that aim, we will conduct a two-armed stepped-wedge cluster randomized trial rolled out to two inpatient hospitals to evaluate whether a machine learning algorithm accurately identifies patients who may benefit from a comprehensive review by a palliative care specialist and decreases time to receiving a palliative care consult in hospital. This is a single-center study which will be conducted from August 2019 to November 2020 at Saint Mary's Hospital & Methodist Hospital both within Mayo Clinic Rochester in Minnesota. Clusters will be nursing units which will be chosen to be a mix of complex patients from Cardiology, Critical Care, and Oncology and had previously established relationships with palliative medicine. The stepped wedge design will have 12 units allocated to a design matrix of 5 treatment wedges. Each wedge will last 75 days resulting in a study period of 12 months of recruitment unless otherwise specified. Data will be analyzed with Bayesian hierarchical models with credible intervals denoting statistical significance.DiscussionThis intervention offers a pragmatic approach to delivering specialty palliative care to hospital patients in need using machine learning, thereby leading to high value care and improved outcomes. It is not enough for AI to be utilized by simply publishing research showing predictive performance; clinical trials demonstrating better outcomes are critically needed. Furthermore, the deployment of an AI algorithm is a complex process that requires multiple teams with varying skill sets. To evaluate a deployed AI, a pragmatic clinical trial can accommodate the difficulties of clinical practice while retaining scientific rigor.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT03976297 . Registered on 6 June 2019, prior to trial start.

Project description:BackgroundDespite the overwhelming prevalence and health implications of obesity, it is rarely adequately addressed in a health care setting. PATHWEIGH is a pragmatic approach to weight management that uses tools built into the electronic medical record to overcome barriers and guide care. Implementation strategies are employed to facilitate adoption and use of the PATHWEIGH tools and processes. The current study will compare the effectiveness of PATHWEIGH versus standard of care (SOC) on patient weight loss in primary care and explore factors for its successful implementation.MethodsA stepped wedge cluster randomized trial design will be used within an effectiveness-implementation hybrid study. Adult patient weight loss and weight loss maintenance will be compared in PATHWEIGH versus SOC in 57 family and internal medicine clinics in a large health system in Colorado, USA. Effectiveness will be evaluated using generalized linear mixed models to determine statistical differences in weight loss and weight loss maintenance at 6, 12, and 18 months. Patient-, provider-, and clinic-level predictors will be identified using mediator and moderator analyses. Conceptually guided by the Practical, Robust, Implementation and Sustainability Model (PRISM), a mixed methods approach including quantitative (practice surveys, use tracking) and qualitative (interviews, observations) data collection will be used to determine factors impeding and facilitating adoption, implementation, and maintenance of PATHWEIGH and evaluate specified implementation strategies. A cost analysis of the practice and system costs and resources required by PATHWEIGH relative to the reimbursement collected will be performed.DiscussionThe effectiveness and implementation of PATHWEIGH, and their interrelatedness, for patient weight loss are collectively the focus of the current trial. Findings from this study are expected to serve as a blueprint for available and effective weight management in primary care medical practice.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04678752 . Registered on December 21, 2020.

Project description:IntroductionSafety-netting in primary care is the best practice in cancer diagnosis, ensuring that patients are followed up until symptoms are explained or have resolved. Currently, clinicians use haphazard manual solutions. The ubiquitous use of electronic health records provides an opportunity to standardise safety-netting practices.A new electronic safety-netting toolkit has been introduced to provide systematic ways to track and follow up patients. We will evaluate the effectiveness of this toolkit, which is embedded in a major primary care clinical system in England:Egerton Medical Information System(EMIS)-Web.Methods and analysisWe will conduct a stepped-wedge cluster RCT in 60 general practices within the RCGP Research and Surveillance Centre (RSC) network. Groups of 10 practices will be randomised into the active phase at 2-monthly intervals over 12 months. All practices will be activated for at least 2 months. The primary outcome is the primary care interval measured as days between the first recorded symptom of cancer (within the year prior to diagnosis) and the subsequent referral to secondary care. Other outcomes include referrals rates and rates of direct access cancer investigation.Analysis of the clustered stepped-wedge design will model associations using a fixed effect for intervention condition of the cluster at each time step, a fixed effect for time and other covariates, and then include a random effect for practice and for patient to account for correlation between observations from the same centre and from the same participant.Ethics and disseminationEthical approval has been obtained from the North West-Greater Manchester West National Health Service Research Ethics Committee (REC Reference 19/NW/0692). Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and conferences, and sent to participating practices. They will be published on the University of Oxford Nuffield Department of Primary Care and RCGP RSC websites.Trial registration numberISRCTN15913081; Pre-results.

Project description:BackgroundThe study was conducted to determine the clinical and cost effectiveness of enhanced multi-disciplinary teams (EMDTs) vs. 'usual care' for the treatment of pressure ulcers in long term care (LTC) facilities in Ontario, CanadaMethodsWe conducted a multi-method study: a pragmatic cluster randomized stepped-wedge trial, ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews, and an economic evaluation. Long term care facilities (clusters) were randomly allocated to start dates of the intervention. An advance practice nurse (APN) with expertise in skin and wound care visited intervention facilities to educate staff on pressure ulcer prevention and treatment, supported by an off-site hospital based expert multi-disciplinary wound care team via email, telephone, or video link as needed. The primary outcome was rate of reduction in pressure ulcer surface area (cm2/day) measured on before and after standard photographs by an assessor blinded to facility allocation. Secondary outcomes were time to healing, probability of healing, pressure ulcer incidence, pressure ulcer prevalence, wound pain, hospitalization, emergency department visits, utility, and cost.Results12 of 15 eligible LTC facilities were randomly selected to participate and randomized to start date of the intervention following the stepped wedge design. 137 residents with a total of 259 pressure ulcers (stage 2 or greater) were recruited over the 17 month study period. No statistically significant differences were found between control and intervention periods on any of the primary or secondary outcomes. The economic evaluation demonstrated a mean reduction in direct care costs of $650 per resident compared to 'usual care'. The qualitative study suggested that onsite support by APN wound specialists was welcomed, and is responsible for reduced costs through discontinuation of expensive non evidence based treatments. Insufficient allocation of nursing home staff time to wound care may explain the lack of impact on healing.ConclusionEnhanced multi-disciplinary wound care teams were cost effective, with most benefit through cost reduction initiated by APNs, but did not improve the treatment of pressure ulcers in nursing homes. Policy makers should consider the potential yield of strengthening evidence based primary care within LTC facilities, through outreach by APNs.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT01232764.

Project description:BackgroundEmergency medicine (EM) physicians frequently care for seriously ill patients at the end of life. Palliative care initiated in the emergency department (ED) can improve symptom management and quality of life, align treatments with patient preferences, and reduce length of hospitalization. We evaluated an educational intervention with digital tools for palliative care discussions in an urban EM residency using the reach, effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance (RE-AIM) framework.MethodsOur intervention, conducted from July 2020 to August 2021, included education on palliative care techniques, digital tools, and incentives for participation. We tracked goals of care conversations and palliative care consults using electronic medical record data, conducted pre- and posttraining surveys, and used semistructured interviews to assess resident perspectives on palliative care conversations in the ED. Outcomes included number of goals of care conversations recorded by EM residents, consults to palliative care from the ED, and resident perspectives on palliative care in EM.ResultsThe results were as follows: reach-45 residents participated in the intervention; effectiveness-89 goals of care conversations were documented by 23 ED residents, and palliative care consults increased from approximately four to 10 monthly; adoption-over half the residents who participated in the intervention documented goals of care discussions using an electronic dotphrase; implementation-by the completion of the intervention, residents reported increased comfort with goals of care conversations, saw palliative care as part of their responsibility as EM physicians, and effectively documented goals of care discussions; and maintenance-at 2-month follow up, palliative care consults from the ED remained at approximately 10 monthly, and digital tools to prompt and track palliative care discussions remained in use.ConclusionsAn integrated palliative care training for EM residents with technological assists was successful in facilitating goals of care discussions and increasing palliative care consults from the ED.

Dataset Information

Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine (PRIM-ER): Protocol for a Pragmatic, Cluster-Randomised, Stepped Wedge Design to Test the Effectiveness of Primary Palliative Care Education, Training and Technical Support for Emergency Medicine.

Publications

Primary Palliative Care for Emergency Medicine (PRIM-ER): Protocol for a Pragmatic, Cluster-Randomised, Stepped Wedge Design to Test the Effectiveness of Primary Palliative Care Education, Training and Technical Support for Emergency Medicine.

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