Hospital Inpatients Clinical Trial
Official title:
Video Assisted Transitions of Care: The Power of Video for Hospital Discharge Process
The purpose of this study is to determine whether the addition of a mobile or web based multimedia discharge application (eDischarge) to the discharge process is effective in improving patient experience, engagement, and clinical outcomes in the early post discharge period.
Hospital discharge is an essential transition of a patient's care from the inpatient health
care team to the patient and caregiver. While a variety of factors may contribute to the
effective discharge process, adequate communication between all parties significantly
contributes to better outcomes. However, studies indicate that nearly one in five Medicare
patients are re-hospitalized within one month of discharge due to lack of patient
understanding and compliance to the post-hospital plan of care.
The standard discharge process, which is similar across all disease etiologies, has not
changed significantly in many years and lags behind today's technological advances.
Currently, the standard discharge process most commonly is delivered as a written document.
This document summarizes the patient's hospitalization and discharge instructions in a plain
text format, not significantly personalized, and is reviewed with the patient and caregivers
usually at time of the discharge. Patients may not pay attention or understand the clinical
information communicated to them and may not remember the dialogues during the discharge. In
addition, patients often misplace their discharge papers and will not follow the post
discharge instructions.
In early 2009, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH)
Act was adopted to promote the meaningful use of health information technology. Stage 1 of
HITECH centered on 5 underlying health outcomes of meaningful use: (1) improve quality,
safety, efficiency, and reduce health disparities; (2) engage patients and families in their
healthcare; (3) improve care coordination; (4) improve population and public health; and (5)
ensure adequate privacy and security protections for personal health information. While the
passage of HITECH and application of new database technologies has prompted an increase in
the use of electronic health records (EHR), the incentives of meaningful use has not been
widely applied (Hsiao and Hing)3.
The current "Age of the Internet" and its ability to deliver data to almost any physical
locale instantaneously, including high resolution audio and video, has fostered new ways to
create, view and share information - including, potentially, medical records. eDischarge is a
new multimedia technology designed to supplement the discharge process and enhance
provider-patient communication by facilitating the delivery of discharge and follow-up
information to patients. Designed as a secure, HIPPA-compliant, cloud-based software
platform, participants are able to access the eDischarge system using a personal computer or
a mobile device, which can enhance access to health information for the patient. Through
eDischarge, participants are given personalized videos, documents, and images tailored
specifically to their particular medical care. eDischarge permits inclusion of both
structured health information exchange data as well as medical data to be added to discharge.
Providers are able to asynchronously create content throughout a participant's hospital stay,
which the participant will be able to access post discharge. The investigators believe that
this technology has the potential to improve patient engagement and experience as well as
enhance a patient's understanding of his disease process and treatment.
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