EMail Reminder to Follow up With Primary Physician

NCT02274831 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: StJosephMHS
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 577
• Locations: 0 countries
• Sites: N/A

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to see if patients who receive an email reinforcing their discharge instructions after being discharged from the emergency department will have an affect on follow-up care with their primary physician.

Conditions

Act Code - Emergency

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Successful follow-up with primary care physician

  Review of medical records at primary care physician's office by one of two physician investigators

  10 days

Study Arms (2)

Email Group

EXPERIMENTAL

Includes receiving standard of care discharge instructions plus an email after being discharged home from the emergency department, reinforcing their discharge instructions. Included in the email is their physician's name and recommended timing of follow-up visit.

Other: Email Reminder of need to follow up with primary physician

Standard of Care

NO INTERVENTION

Includes standard of care discharge instructions after being discharged from the emergency department. This included receiving paper copies of their discharge instructions.

Interventions

Email Reminder of need to follow up with primary physician OTHER

Email Group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• \. Patients triaged to category 2, 3, and 4 and placed in a room for care at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital-Ann Arbor Emergency Department 2. Primarily English speaking. 3. \>18 years of age 4. Have a primary physician who is part of Integrated Health Associates 5. Have access to an email account

You may not qualify if:

• \. Patients triaged to category 1 or 5 placed in a room at Stl Joseph Mercy Hospital-Ann Arbor (category 1 patients are not typically discharged home from the hospital. Category 5 patients could potentially be interfered with if attempting implementation of the communication instrument. Category 5 patients are typically very straightforward visits with minimal requirement for follow-up appointments) 2. Patients \< age 18 3. Prisoners or institutionalized persons 4. Patients with a mental-health related chief complaint 5. Not primarily English speaking (the potential language barriers could interfere with ability to communicate via email which will be written in English) 6. Under temporary or permanent custodianship (used as a surrogate for ongoing lack of mental competence or consciousness) 7. Prior participation in this study. (A patient may only participate once).

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Trinity Health Michigan: lead

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: DOUBLE
• Who Masked: INVESTIGATOR, OUTCOMES ASSESSOR
• Purpose: SUPPORTIVE CARE
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: October 23, 2014
• First Posted: October 24, 2014
• Study Start: August 1, 2011
• Primary Completion: March 1, 2014
• Study Completion: March 1, 2014
• Last Updated: October 24, 2014

Record last verified: 2014-10