Digital Bridge: Using Technology to Support Patient-centered Care Transitions From Hospital to Home

Condition(s) studied

Investigational drug(s) / intervention(s)

Digital Bridge:Tool Intervention: Our Digital Bridge is an integration of the Care Connector and ePRO technologies that will support care transitions by: 1) inviting PCPs to access Care Connector while the patient is in hospital, allowing for asynchronous communication via the messaging feature for proactive discharge planning, 2) facilitating the inclusion of inter-professional recommendations in the discharge module (e.g. diet and mobility) typically missing from traditional physician generated discharge summaries, 3) electronic generation of PODS for use in patient-centred discharge teaching, 4) providing patients electronic access to PODS post discharge to facilitate use of information at home, 5) adoption of digital enabled goal-oriented process to engage patients and families in discharge process, and 6) providing ongoing self-management support for patients using ePRO for the vulnerable period 6 months post discharge.

Study summary

Older adults who live with multiple chronic conditions are more likely to experience frequent admissions and discharges from hospital. These transitions are often challenging and leave people at risk of readmission. Appropriate, timely and person-centred communication across all health care providers involved in transitions (in and out of hospital) as well as with patients and their families is critical to ensure a smooth and effective transition process. Digital health technologies can play an important role in improving person-centred communication across clinical settings and clinicians. This project will develop and test a Digital Bridge by connecting communication technologies already in use in hospital and primary care/community settings to improve communication between providers in hospital and in primary care, patients and family caregivers from admission to 6 months post-discharge. The investigators will engage with all the technology users to co-design the Digital Bridge, ensuring that how the investigators connect the existing technologies and adopt them into practice will meet the needs of providers, patients and their caregivers. Next hospital partners will adopt the technology into general medicine and rehabilitation services in hospital systems in Toronto (Sinai Health System) and Mississauga (Trillium Health Partners). The investigators will evaluate the Digital Bridge through a pre-post pragmatic trial, assessing impact on patient experience (quality of transition), patient outcomes (quality of life), transition processes (provider communication and teamwork), and system costs (economic evaluation). This project adopts an implementation science lens, allowing the investigators to collect qualitative data on enablers and barriers to adopting the Digital Bridge to help inform development of a scale and spread strategy.

Eligibility

Primary outcome measure(s)

• Care Transitions Measure (CTM3) — At 1-2 weeks post-discharge
  The CTM3 is a patient-reported measure of transition quality focusing on person-centredness and communication; appropriate as the focus of the Digital Bridge is to improve person-centred communication during transitions. The CTM-3 survey has been validated in similar patient populations transitioning from hospital to home and primary care, and in a systematic review of transitions measures was deemed to be the most acceptable measure of quality transitions.

Trial sites (1)

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