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Study Of Telemedicine Consultation at Home For Older Adults

NCT01324687 · Status: COMPLETED · Type: OBSERVATIONAL · Enrollment: 1537

Last updated 2017-06-09

Study results available
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Summary

The system of medical care for older adults with acute illnesses often serves them poorly. Many factors limit these patients' access to safe, patient-centered, efficient, high-quality, acute care. These factors include a shortage of geriatricians and primary care physicians; limited availability of timely, acute-illness, patient appointments; emergency department (ED) crowding; interruptions to the continuity of care when patients use the ED; and poor transitions of care from the ambulatory setting to the ED. These conditions foster unnecessary ED use, adverse events in the ED for which older adults are particularly at-risk, and unnecessary medical costs. As the population ages, the magnitude of these problems will only increase.

The overarching study goals are to develop and evaluate a telemedicine-enhanced care model that improves access to safe, high-quality, acute illness care for older adults; fosters appropriate use of health services; and reduces unnecessary expenditures. Specifically, this study aims to:

1. Expand the existing pediatric HeA telemedicine network to older adults by providing senior living communities (SLC) with an alternative on-site care option for individuals with an acute illness episode.

Hypothesis 1: 90% of requested telemedicine visits will be successfully completed.
2. Evaluate the impact of the HeA telemedicine model on utilization, quality of care, and patient safety.

Hypothesis 2: The rate of ED use will be lower at SLCs with access to care via telemedicine, as compared to SLCs without such access to care.

Hypothesis 3: Quality of care and patient safety measures will be better for SLC residents with access to telemedicine-enhanced care than for residents without this form of access.
3. Evaluate the economic benefit of the care delivered through the telemedicine network.

Hypothesis 4: The net cost of healthcare per patient-month will be less for SLC residents with access to telemedicine-enhanced care than for those without this form of access.
4. Use qualitative methods to identify strategies and assets that promote and conditions that impede the implementation, acceptance, and success of the HeA telemedicine network in SLCs. This knowledge will inform efforts to develop a toolkit to be used to disseminate this technology broadly.

Conditions

  • Physical Disorders
  • Telemedicine

Interventions

OTHER

Telemedicine care

Availability of telemedicine

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

    collaborator FED

  • University of Rochester

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Manish N. Shah, MD · University of Rochester

  • Kenneth McConnochie, MD · University of Rochester

Eligibility

Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2010-10-31
Primary Completion
2015-12-31
Completion
2015-12-31

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT01324687 on ClinicalTrials.gov