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Completed

NCT Number: NCT01970852

Addressing Hospital Patient Information Needs Using Information Technology

The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of an inpatient personal health record (PHR) portal intervention within the hospital environment. The intervention hopes to improve patient engagement with their care and to measure patient activation and satisfaction. Additional clinical measure (e.g. number of adverse events that occur during the stay, changes to medication orders, etc.) will also be studied. Characterization of hospital patient and clinician attitudes towards patient engagement will also be formalized.

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Key information

Conditions

Inpatient

Age range

18 year and older

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Columbia University Medical Center

New York, 10032, United States

About this study

This study will utilize an enhanced inpatient PHR portal to allow patients to view their care team, documented allergies and medications (home and hospital) as well as electronically document questions and concerns related to their care. These questions and concerns are visible to members of the patients' care teams within our commercial inpatient electronic health record (EHR). We will study the impact of the technology using a randomized trial of 426 cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery patients at Columbia University Medical Center in Upper Manhattan. We hypothesize that the use of the inpatient PHR portal will identify and address patients' information needs, improve patient activation, engagement and satisfaction, and encourage PHR use after hospital discharge. We also hypothesize that information entered by patients into the PHR portal will be useful to clinicians. There is no compensation for participating in this study.

The specific aims of the proposal are to:

Aim 1: Evaluate the impact of an inpatient PHR portal intervention using a randomized controlled trial. The primary outcomes will be patient activation, engagement and satisfaction. We will also determine whether access to the inpatient PHR portal is correlated with greater use of the PHR after hospital discharge.

Aim 2: Characterize information needs of hospital patients and assess clinicians' attitudes toward patient engagement in the hospital setting. We will analyze the questions and comments that patients record within the PHR portal application and assess the salience of patient-entered information to issues of care quality and safety. This aim will expand our previous work in taxonomy development and hazard and near-miss recognition. A survey will be administered to collect clinicians' perceptions of the barriers to and facilitators of system use. EHR documentation will be reviewed to assess whether patient-entered information was acknowledged by clinicians, and whether changes were made to the patient's plan of care as a result.

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Speaks English or Spanish
  • Admitted to unit where study is ongoing

Exclusion criteria

  • Does not pass Mini-mental status exam

Treatment and study plan

Standard tablet computer

Other

No special enhancements or links to personal health information.

Enhanced tablet computer

Other

Tablet computer with personalized access to data from the patient's electronic health record.

Primary outcomes

  1. Change in Patient Activation Measure

    Time frame: Admission to Unit and 3-5 days after

    The PAM assesses the knowledge, skills and confidence essential to managing one's own health and healthcare. It segments consumers into one of four progressively higher activation levels. The PAM score has been used to predict healthcare outcomes including medication adherence, ER utilization and hospitalization.

Secondary outcomes

  1. Patient Satisfaction

    Time frame: 3-5 days after admission to study

    We will measure patient patient satisfaction using a survey instrument along with data obtained from EHR and PHR system logs. The Patient Survey instrument measures information needs, satisfaction, patient engagement, and system usefulness. It is derived from the 26-item Telemedicine Satisfaction and Usefulness Questionnaire (Bakken, 2006)

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Columbia University

Other

Collaborators

  • Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
  • National Library of Medicine (NLM)

Registry information

Official study title

Addressing Hospital Patient Information Needs Using a Personal Health Record Portal

Important dates

Study start
2014
Primary completion
2018
Study completion
2018
First posted
Oct 28, 2013
Registry last updated
Jul 18, 2018

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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