PCORI Award to Evaluate Telehealth Support for Children with Complex Conditions
Post Date: March 9, 2022 | Publish Date:
Children with complex medical conditions often require as many as 30 different doses of medicine each day as well as technology including home ventilators and tube feeding. These children frequently require hospital stays. When they go home, families often have a list of medication adjustments and sometimes new equipment to learn how to use.
Misunderstanding complicated discharge instructions is common and getting questions answered can be difficult and frustrating for families.
The Hospital Medicine team at Cincinnati Children’s has partnered with families of children with complex chronic disease as well as researchers in the Division of General and Community Pediatrics, Research in Patient Services, Home Care Service, and the Center for Telehealth. This team demonstrated initial satisfaction improvements with a telemedicine-supported discharge program they call Garnering Effective Telehealth 2 Help Optimize Multidisciplinary team Engagement (GET2HOME).
Now, they have received a research funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) of $2.9 million to study the program’s impact on patient outcomes. Principal Investigators for the award are Patrick Brady, MD, MSc, and Katherine Auger, MD, MSc.
The intervention has three parts:
- A pre-discharge telehealth huddle that allows families to speak with the hospital team and their outpatient care team (physicians, home care nurses, pharmacists) before they leave the hospital
- A discharge task tracker
- And a post-discharge telehealth huddle between families and caregivers a few days after discharge
Pending final contract approvals, the PCORI funding will support evaluating the program for three years, including measures of return visits, quality of life, family discharge experience, and family understanding of who to contact with questions.
For questions about GET2HOME, contact 513-803-8092.
