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Nudging Effective and Equitable Delivery of Specialty Palliative Care

NCT06596577 · Status: ENROLLING_BY_INVITATION · Phase: PHASE3 · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 18000

Last updated 2026-04-30

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

This stepped-wedge, cluster randomized pragmatic trial among 9 MedStar hospitals for patients with serious illness and unmet palliative care (PC) needs will test two interventions embedded within the electronic health record (EHR): (1) a PC needs triggered alert to opt-in to PC consults nudging hospital clinicians to order specialty PC consults for eligible inpatients, and (2) a palliative care needs triggered alert with an opt-out to palliative care consults. The trial will compare the interventions effects to usual care, focusing on completed PC consults during the hospital encounter and other secondary outcomes. The trial also includes an embedded mixed methods study to explore factors influencing the effectiveness and equity of intervention implementation.

Conditions

  • Serious Illness
  • Palliative

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Palliative care needs information

clinician-directed EHR alert providing information about serious illness diagnosis(-es) and unmet palliative care needs

BEHAVIORAL

Default consult order

clinician-directed EHR alert providing information about serious illness diagnosis(-es) and unmet palliative care needs + a choice to cancel the default palliative care consult order

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • National Institute on Aging (NIA)

    collaborator NIH

  • Medstar Health Research Institute

    collaborator OTHER

  • University of Pennsylvania

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Katherine Courtright, MD, MS · University of Pennsylvania

  • Michael Harhay, PhD, MPH · University of Pennsylvania

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
TRIPLE
Model
CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2025-08-06
Primary Completion
2028-03-01
Completion
2029-02-28

Countries

  • United States

Study Locations

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Entities

Companies

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 NCT06596577 on ClinicalTrials.gov