NCT05502861

A Pragmatic Trial of an Active Choice Nudge for Generalist or Specialist Palliative Care for Seriously Ill Inpatients

A Pragmatic Trial of an Active Choice Nudge for Generalist or Specialist Palliative Care for Seriously Ill Inpatients: The Palliative Connect Trial

• Status: Active Not Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 18,884 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This stepped-wedge, cluster-randomized pragmatic trial among six hospitals at University of Pennsylvania Health System will test a behavioral intervention embedded within the electronic health record that nudges hospital clinicians to either provide palliative care (PC) themselves (generalist PC) or consult specialists (specialty PC) for inpatients at high risk of death within 6 months. The trial will evaluate the intervention's effect compared to usual care on the primary outcome of hospital-free days through 6 months, and other patient-centered, clinical, and economic outcomes. The trial also includes an embedded mixed methods study to understand clinician and hospital contextual factors that influence the intervention's uptake.

Conditions

• Palliative Care

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Generalist + Specialist palliative care	Clinicians are alerted in the EHR to make an active choice whether to provide generalist palliative care themselves, consult PC specialist, or to defer PC at that time.
BEHAVIORAL	Pre-Intervention phase	Patients meeting eligibility criteria will be enrolled for study data collection but there will be no attempt to influence delivery of care.

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-11-13
• Primary completion: 2026-05-17
• Completion: 2026-05-17
• First posted: 2022-08-16
• Last updated: 2026-04-14

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States