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Nudging High Emergency Department Utilizers to Consider Non-emergent Healthcare Resources

NCT06818825 · Status: COMPLETED · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 1126

Last updated 2026-03-13

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

The goal of this campaign is to reduce unnecessary ED visits by providing patients who are high ED utilizers (with a visit of any acuity) with alternative resources to manage their health outside of the ED. In this campaign, patients will be randomized to receive one of two types of outreach following discharge aligned with the goal. Outreach may occur via (1) a phone call from a Geisinger Community Health Worker (CHW) or Community Medical Assistant (CMA); current standard practice or (2) an interactive chatbot message providing similar information and questions to those provided by the CHW/CMA. The study team will measure whether ED use differs across patients in different outreach conditions. The study team will also examine whether patients followed through on the message-specific calls to action in the messages differently across conditions.

Conditions

  • Emergency Service, Hospital

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Automated interactive messages

High ED utilizers will be sent SMS text messages guiding them through ED-alternative resources, with different guidance (including a follow-up phone call from a healthcare worker) depending on patient responses.

BEHAVIORAL

Live outreach

High ED utilizers will be called (and possibly visited) by a CHW/CMA guiding them through ED-alternative resources.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Geisinger Clinic

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Amir Goren, PhD · Geisinger Clinic

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2025-02-03
Primary Completion
2025-09-20
Completion
2025-09-20

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 NCT06818825 on ClinicalTrials.gov