NCT01207180

Discharge Planning for Elderly Patients in the Emergency Department: Use of a Brief Phone Call After Discharge to Improve Medication Utilization and Physician Follow-up

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 157 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The investigators hypothesize that the acquisition and correct utilization of medications as well as arranging and attending follow-up appointments will improve as a result of a phone call intervention 1-3 days after elderly patients are discharged from the emergency department (ED).

Detailed description

Older patients seen in the ED are at high risk of functional decline and return visits to the ED. Previous studies have shown that a comprehensive assessment by a geriatric specialist at the time of discharge from the ED along with extensive integration with home services and/or referral to community services can decrease functional decline and return visits to the ED as well as increase patient satisfaction, but this intervention is resource intensive requiring a geriatric discharge specialist to be available to the emergency department 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week. It is also known that in other patient populations telephone reminders to make follow up appointments can increase rate of follow up and that comprehension of discharge instructions is the primary barrier to compliance with discharge instructions. It has been shown that telephone follow-up interviews are feasible for geriatric patients discharged from the ED, and that many elderly patients discharged from the ED do not understand their discharge instructions or attend follow-up appointments. However, there are no published studies evaluating whether a follow up telephone call after discharge from the ED can improve patient compliance with the medical treatment plan including obtaining follow - up appointments and obtaining prescribed medications as well as using them appropriately. We seek to determine if we can increase compliance with medications and outpatient follow up with a phone call from a nurse provider 1-3 days after discharge.

Conditions

• Patient Discharge

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Phone call follow-up	A nurse will call the patient to counsel patients on their medications and following up with their primary care provider.
OTHER	Satisfaction survey	Patients will be given a satisfaction survey.
OTHER	Control group --- no intervention	Control group

Timeline

• Start date: 2010-09-01
• Primary completion: 2010-11-01
• Completion: 2010-11-01
• First posted: 2010-09-22
• Last updated: 2011-11-18

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States