GrandAides; a Workforce Innovation to Address Post Acute Care

GrandAides program is a credible messenger community health worker based program that assumes a community health worker from the community who has specialized education around a certain chronic condition will be able to support patients in the outpatient setting more effectively than current standard of care. In this study a GrandAide visited a patient discharged from the hospital in their home for 4 weeks providing education, checking vital signs, and assisting with communication with the cardiologist. The study measured the difference in hospital admissions and ER visits between the group that was assigned a GrandAid and the group that took part in standard care. The groups were assigned randomly. The difference was calculated using one and two tailed t-test results.

Inclusion criteria

Clinical diagnosis of heart failure Lives in 6 zipcode catchment area of Temple University Hospital Is followed by Temple Cardiology

Exclusion criteria

End Stage Renal Disease Housed in a Skilled Nursing Facility Substance Use Disorder Unable to give consent Doesn't speak English Under age 18