Study of Physician Awareness of and Communication About Patient Readmissions to the Hospital

Hospital Readmission Clinical Trial

Official title:

Physician Awareness of and Communication About Hospital Readmissions

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Completed

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT00550264
• Other study ID #: 2006P001975; BWH
• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• First received: October 25, 2007
• Last updated: June 27, 2011
• Start date: February 2007
• Est. completion date: January 2008

Study information

• Verified date: June 2011
• Source: Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Contact: n/a
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Health authority: United States: Institutional Review Board
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Patients admitted to inpatient medicine services often require early hospital readmission, and often they are readmitted to different physician or team, potentially without the knowledge of the prior physician or team. Thus, physicians may lose the opportunity to share valuable information about readmitted patients, which may be detrimental to continuity of care and patient safety. The purpose of this study is to determine baseline awareness and communication rates among physicians regarding readmissions, and then measure the effect of automatic notification on these rates.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Completed
• Enrollment: 500
• Est. completion date: January 2008
• Est. primary completion date: January 2008
• Accepts healthy volunteers: No
• Gender: Both
• Age group: 18 Years and older

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• All patients admitted to the general medicine service at two academic medical centers, and unexpectedly readmitted within 14 days.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients readmitted to the same physician(s), or those whose readmission was planned

Study Design

Allocation: Randomized, Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment, Masking: Open Label

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Hospital Readmission

Intervention

Other:
• Automatic notification of readmissions
The experimental group physicians will receive automatic e-mail notification when a patient is readmitted, including contact information for the readmitting team.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
United States	Brigham & Women's Hospital	Boston	Massachusetts

Sponsors (2)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Brigham and Women's Hospital	Harvard Risk Management Foundation

Country where clinical trial is conducted

United States, 

References & Publications (1)

Roy CL, Kachalia A, Woolf S, Burdick E, Karson A, Gandhi TK. Hospital readmissions: physician awareness and communication practices. J Gen Intern Med. 2009 Mar;24(3):374-80. doi: 10.1007/s11606-008-0848-x. Epub 2008 Nov 4. — View Citation

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Physician Awareness and Communication Rates		Within 24 hours of readmission time	Yes