View clinical trials related to Multi-morbidity.
Filter by:Estonia's aging population faces an increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and a growing population suffers with multiple chronic conditions. These changes have reduced well-being and quality of life for many older Estonians, while increasing the use of high cost specialist and emergency care. In response, the Estonia Health Insurance Fund (EHIF) is working to support primary care physicians to improve care for complex patients with multiple chronic conditions. A new EHIF-led program, Enhanced Care Management (ECM), entails training family physicians to identify complex patients, co-develop proactive care plans with them, and to undertake more active outreach to and management of these patients.
Medical care has improved greatly over the past 50 years. Treatments for most medical conditions can help us lead longer and healthier lives, but there are still problems. Many patients with two or more conditions see many different doctors and sometimes take more medications than needed. These patients can feel lost and confused. In addition, non-medical issues involving housing, food, transportation, employment, income, support from others, and language barriers can have a large impact on our health. In Minnesota, many primary care clinics are using a method called care coordination to improve the health of patients who have a number of chronic diseases (some examples of chronic diseases include diabetes, heart disease, asthma and depression). With care coordination, a nurse in the clinic helps the various doctors, clinics, and specialists to work together, in the interest of the patient. In some clinics, a social worker also helps with care coordination. These social workers help with issues like housing, transportation, or employment. Care coordination can help reduce patient confusion. It also can improve health and lower patient burdens and costs of getting medical care. To help find out what types of care coordination are most successful, we are proposing a study. Our plan is to track the health of patients receiving care coordination and compare two types: A. Care coordination done by a nurse or other clinic staff B. Care coordination where a licensed social worker also assists the patient In this study, we will measure many things, including: 1. Control of chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, asthma, and depression 2. Hospitalizations 3. Emergency department visits 4. Use of medications and diagnostic tests 5. Use of specialty care 6. General health status 7. Patient satisfaction and access to care 8. Use of shared decision-making (where the doctor and the patient make treatment decisions together) 9. Patient burden (how much time and effort the patient spends trying to get healthy) 10. Patients' out-of-pocket medical costs This project will be important to patients because it could reduce confusion and fragmented care while improving all the items above. Those improvements will be more likely because this project takes advantage of engagement with patients and others. We have four patient partners who will help conduct the study and interpret and broadly share the results. The project was developed with the input from patients, clinic leaders, people from state government, and experts on health and quality care. By measuring a wide variety of outcomes for the adults receiving coordination services in these clinics, we hope to identify the specific actionable information that will allow these and other clinics to improve their services for these patients with complex needs. Throughout the project, we will communicate our findings to clinics and health systems. As a result, many people may receive better care.
The project aims to transition the approach used to care for children with complex conditions and care pathways into a more holistic and coordinated model. The traditional model where specialists independently treat single diseases, makes joint and coordinated decisions about patients with multiple and unclear conditions difficult. In particular there is a gap between mental and somatic services. In preparation for re-designing the care model, several pre-studies are conducted, both a register study and a collection of user reported experiences. Built on the results, we have invented multi-disciplinary teams of complementary competences including paediatricians, psychologists, and physiotherapists to meet the patient and family. The study includes: - To implement the new team intervention in a clinical case-control study - To scientifically evaluate the intervention - To systematise lessons learned in regard to potential spread across systems and patient groups Children 6-16 years together with family and professionals will constitute the team. The assessment aims to clarify the patient's condition through shared decision making and to develop a treatment plan for the child. It is a clinical randomised controlled trial where TpT children will be compared to children following treatment as usual. It includes a one year follow-up regarding a set of evaluation domains: provider perspectives, user-centred experiences and outcomes, as well as health care outcomes.
In an aging population, most seniors suffer from multiple chronic conditions. When the number of medications taken is ≥5 (polypharmacy), the burden of taking multiple concurrent medications can do more harm than good. Seniors take an average of 7 regular medications and studies link polypharmacy with adverse effects on morbidity, function and health service use. However, it is not clear to what extent these are reversible if medication burden is reduced. This trial will test the effects on medication numbers and patient health outcomes of an intervention to polypharmacy. This study will test a program focused on medication reduction number and dose. Prioritizing medications according to the patient's preference as reducing the dose also reduces the risk of drug side effects. Patients, aged 70 years of age or older and taking ≥5 medications will receive the TAPER program. The program involves information gathering from the patient, including systematically seeking patients priorities and preferences, medication review with the pharmacist and then a consultation with the family doctor. The intervention is focused on discontinuing/reducing the dose of medications where possible using a 'pause and monitor' framework to assess the need for restart. An electronic program that detects drug adverse effects and flags potentially inappropriate medications will be integrated into an electronic clinical pathway incorporating monitoring and follow-up systems. This study will examine whether implementing a deprescribing care pathway with community pharmacists as point-of-entry can signal improvements in prescribing and patient health outcomes in older adults with polypharmacy.
Medication side effects and interactions between medications are very common in older adults and are related to negative health outcomes, including mobility. In this study, the investigators will test a new process aimed at reducing unnecessary medication use and drug side effects in seniors using the best medical evidence and patient preferences for treatment. This study will assess how feasible the implementation of this intervention is within a long-term care facility as well as if it is possible. The study will also assess for any signals of reversal of medications related mobility impairments to reduce medications-related mobility impairment (fatigue, pain, falls) using the intervention. Participants in two long-term care facilities will participate in this study. Measures will include feasibility outcomes regarding the logistics of the intervention as well as patients outcomes (falls, hospitalizations, and medications) collected before and after implementation. Findings will inform the design of a randomized controlled trial to test the effect of this intervention on health outcomes.
In an aging population, most seniors suffer from multiple chronic conditions. When the number of medications taken is ≥5 (polypharmacy), the burden of taking multiple concurrent medications can do more harm than good. Seniors take an average of 7 regular medications and studies link polypharmacy with adverse effects on morbidity, function and health service use. However, it is not clear to what extent these are reversible if medication burden is reduced. This trial will test the effects on medication numbers and patient health outcomes of an intervention to polypharmacy. This study will test a program focused on medication reduction number and dose. Prioritizing medications according to the patient's preference as reducing the dose also reduces the risk of drug side effects. Patients, aged 70 years of age or older and are taking ≥5 medications, will randomly receive the program immediately or at 6 months. The program involves information gathering from the patient, including systematically seeking patients priorities and preferences medication review with the pharmacist and then a consultation with the family doctor. The intervention is focused on discontinuing/reducing the dose of medications where possible using a 'pause and monitor' framework to assess the need for restart. An electronic program that detects drug adverse effects and flags potentially inappropriate medications will be integrated into an electronic clinical pathway incorporating monitoring and follow up systems. This study will examine effects on patient and health relevant outcome measures as well as qualitative research exploring patients' and clinicians' experiences of reducing medication burden. The results will be used to determine whether this system can be implemented as part of routine preventative care in primary care for older adults.