NCT06818825

Nudging High Emergency Department Utilizers to Consider Non-emergent Healthcare Resources

Point of ED Discharge Interactive Outreach: High ED Utilizers

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 1,126 (actual)
• Sponsor: Geisinger Clinic · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The goal of this campaign is to reduce unnecessary ED visits by providing patients who are high ED utilizers (with a visit of any acuity) with alternative resources to manage their health outside of the ED. In this campaign, patients will be randomized to receive one of two types of outreach following discharge aligned with the goal. Outreach may occur via (1) a phone call from a Geisinger Community Health Worker (CHW) or Community Medical Assistant (CMA); current standard practice or (2) an interactive chatbot message providing similar information and questions to those provided by the CHW/CMA. The study team will measure whether ED use differs across patients in different outreach conditions. The study team will also examine whether patients followed through on the message-specific calls to action in the messages differently across conditions.

Conditions

• Emergency Service, Hospital

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Automated interactive messages	High ED utilizers will be sent SMS text messages guiding them through ED-alternative resources, with different guidance (including a follow-up phone call from a healthcare worker) depending on patient responses.
BEHAVIORAL	Live outreach	High ED utilizers will be called (and possibly visited) by a CHW/CMA guiding them through ED-alternative resources.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-02-03
• Primary completion: 2025-09-20
• Completion: 2025-09-20
• First posted: 2025-02-11
• Last updated: 2026-03-13

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States