Use of Financial Incentives to Increase Live Kidney Donor Follow-up Compliance

Nephrectomy Clinical Trial

Official title:

Use of Financial Incentives to Increase Live Kidney Donor Follow-up Compliance

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Active, not recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT03090646
• Other study ID #: IRB00126158
• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: March 22, 2017
• Est. completion date: April 1, 2025

Study information

• Verified date: March 2024
• Source: Johns Hopkins University
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

This study evaluates whether using small financial incentives increases patient compliance with nationally-mandated living kidney donor follow-up at 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years after donation. Half of participants will receive a financial incentive (mailed gift card) after completing required follow-up activities (brief questionnaire and lab draw), while the other half will be asked to complete the required follow-up activities but will not receive a financial incentive (current standard of care).

Description:

Living kidney donors account for nearly a third of kidney transplants performed in the United States each year. While donor nephrectomy poses minimal post-surgical risk, donors face a small but measurable increase in the risk of developing kidney failure and other chronic diseases (including hypertension, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes) in the long-term. Routine screening presents an opportunity for the early detection and management of chronic conditions.

Transplant hospital reporting requirements mandate the submission of laboratory and clinical data at 6-months, 1-year, and 2-years after kidney donation, but less than 50% of hospitals are able to comply. Transplant hospitals commonly cite barriers such as donor inconvenience, direct and indirect costs to donors, donors not wanting to return to the program, and the burden of data collection. Tools to improve donor engagement and strategies that mitigate patient and administrative burden are needed.

Financial incentives have been employed in many realms of healthcare to change health-related behaviors. Financial incentives include a variety of rewards that have an economic value for the recipient, including cash payments, coupons, goods, and services, and have been shown to positively influence both simple (i.e. accomplished through a single action) and complex (i.e. accomplished repeatedly over a period of time, often involving sustained lifestyle modifications) health-related behaviors. However, prior work suggests that the effectiveness of financial incentives in achieving health behavior often varies based on the characteristics of the population and health behavior of interest and may decrease over time.

Given that patient-level factors are commonly cited by transplant hospitals as barriers to compliance with federally-mandated donor follow-up thresholds, financial incentives might be a valuable tool to promote patient engagement in post donation monitoring efforts. However, given the uncertainty in the literature, a randomized controlled trial is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of using financial incentivization to promote patient compliance with follow-up care in this setting.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Active, not recruiting
• Enrollment: 320
• Est. completion date: April 1, 2025
• Est. primary completion date: December 1, 2024
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Adults (=18 years)

• Have undergone live donor nephrectomy at the Johns Hopkins Hospital Comprehensive Transplant Center (MDJH) or the University of Maryland Medical Center Transplant Center (MDUM).

Exclusion Criteria:

• International live kidney donors

• Non-English speaking live kidney donors

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Kidney
• Living Donors
• Nephrectomy

Intervention

Other:
• Financial Incentive
Up to three gift cards to a major online retailer.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	The Johns Hopkins Hospital Comprehensive Transplant Center	Baltimore	Maryland
United States	University of Maryland Medical Center Transplant Center	Baltimore	Maryland

Sponsors (3)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Johns Hopkins University	The Living Legacy Foundation, University of Maryland, Baltimore

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

References & Publications (10)

Boudville N, Prasad GV, Knoll G, Muirhead N, Thiessen-Philbrook H, Yang RC, Rosas-Arellano MP, Housawi A, Garg AX; Donor Nephrectomy Outcomes Research (DONOR) Network. Meta-analysis: risk for hypertension in living kidney donors. Ann Intern Med. 2006 Aug 1;145(3):185-96. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-145-3-200608010-00006. — View Citation

Brown RS Jr, Higgins R, Pruett TL. The evolution and direction of OPTN oversight of live organ donation and transplantation in the United States. Am J Transplant. 2009 Jan;9(1):31-4. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-6143.2008.02433.x. Epub 2008 Oct 6. — View Citation

Haisley E, Volpp KG, Pellathy T, Loewenstein G. The impact of alternative incentive schemes on completion of health risk assessments. Am J Health Promot. 2012 Jan-Feb;26(3):184-8. doi: 10.4278/ajhp.100729-ARB-257. — View Citation

Halpern SD, French B, Small DS, Saulsgiver K, Harhay MO, Audrain-McGovern J, Loewenstein G, Brennan TA, Asch DA, Volpp KG. Randomized trial of four financial-incentive programs for smoking cessation. N Engl J Med. 2015 May 28;372(22):2108-17. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1414293. Epub 2015 May 13. — View Citation

Kimmel SE, Troxel AB, Loewenstein G, Brensinger CM, Jaskowiak J, Doshi JA, Laskin M, Volpp K. Randomized trial of lottery-based incentives to improve warfarin adherence. Am Heart J. 2012 Aug;164(2):268-74. doi: 10.1016/j.ahj.2012.05.005. — View Citation

Klein AS, Messersmith EE, Ratner LE, Kochik R, Baliga PK, Ojo AO. Organ donation and utilization in the United States, 1999-2008. Am J Transplant. 2010 Apr;10(4 Pt 2):973-86. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-6143.2009.03008.x. — View Citation

Living Kidney Donor Follow-Up Conference Writing Group; Leichtman A, Abecassis M, Barr M, Charlton M, Cohen D, Confer D, Cooper M, Danovitch G, Davis C, Delmonico F, Dew MA, Garvey C, Gaston R, Gill J, Gillespie B, Ibrahim H, Jacobs C, Kahn J, Kasiske B, Kim J, Lentine K, Manyalich M, Medina-Pestana J, Merion R, Moxey-Mims M, Odim J, Opelz G, Orlowski J, Rizvi A, Roberts J, Segev DL, Sledge T, Steiner R, Taler S, Textor S, Thiel G, Waterman A, Williams E, Wolfe R, Wynn J, Matas AJ. Living kidney donor follow-up: state-of-the-art and future directions, conference summary and recommendations. Am J Transplant. 2011 Dec;11(12):2561-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-6143.2011.03816.x. Epub 2011 Nov 4. — View Citation

Muzaale AD, Massie AB, Wang MC, Montgomery RA, McBride MA, Wainright JL, Segev DL. Risk of end-stage renal disease following live kidney donation. JAMA. 2014 Feb 12;311(6):579-86. doi: 10.1001/jama.2013.285141. — View Citation

Schold JD, Buccini LD, Rodrigue JR, Mandelbrot D, Goldfarb DA, Flechner SM, Kayler LK, Poggio ED. Critical Factors Associated With Missing Follow-Up Data for Living Kidney Donors in the United States. Am J Transplant. 2015 Sep;15(9):2394-403. doi: 10.1111/ajt.13282. Epub 2015 Apr 22. — View Citation

Waterman AD, Dew MA, Davis CL, McCabe M, Wainright JL, Forland CL, Bolton L, Cooper M. Living-donor follow-up attitudes and practices in U.S. kidney and liver donor programs. Transplantation. 2013 Mar 27;95(6):883-8. doi: 10.1097/TP.0b013e31828279fd. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Other	Logistical Challenges of Intervention Implementation	Data related to potential logistical challenges of implementing the intervention (e.g., number of mailing attempts necessary, failed delivery attempts, incorrect or out-of-date contact information, etc.).	2 years
Primary	Patient Compliance with Follow-Up	Rate of policy-defined complete (all components addressed) and timely (within 60 days before or after the 6-month, 1-year, or 2-year post donation date; i.e. 120-day period) submission of data at 6-month, 1-year, and 2-year follow-up visits (assessed separately for each follow-up time point and as a composite outcome over the study period).	2 years
Secondary	Hospital compliance with Reporting Requirements	Transplant hospital-level compliance with the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) reporting requirements (submission of clinical data for 80% and laboratory data for 75% of donors) at each visit (assessed separately for each follow-up time point and as a composite outcome over the study period).	2 years