Project Summary
This research project is in progress. PCORI will post the research findings on this page within 90 days after the results are final.
What is the research about?
Children with complex chronic disease, or CCD, have serious long-term health problems. For children with CCD, returning home after a hospital stay can be hard. For example, families may have trouble using medical equipment such as feeding tubes. Nearly a quarter of all children with CCD return to the hospital within 30 days of going home.
In this study, the research team is comparing two ways to help families of children with CCD return home after a hospital stay. The first way is a program called GET2HOME. This program helps families complete necessary tasks before leaving the hospital and supports families once they return home. The second way is usual care.
Who can this research help?
Results may help hospital care teams when considering ways to help families of children with CCD return home after a hospital stay.
What is the research team doing?
First, the research team is enrolling 600 children with CCD from a children’s hospital in Ohio. The team is assigning children and their families by chance to receive GET2HOME or usual care. In GET2HOME, families receive a task tracker to help them know what tasks to complete before leaving the hospital. Families can receive an electronic or paper-based tracker. Families also meet with their child’s care team before going home. The care team includes hospital staff and the child’s usual care providers, such as their primary care doctor or home care nurse. Families meet with their care team again two to seven days after the child returns home. Both meetings occur via telehealth. Telehealth is a way to provide care to patients remotely using phone, video, or monitoring devices that can help manage care.
In usual care, the child’s hospital care team meets before the child goes home to discuss ongoing care. These meetings don’t include the family. Primary care doctors can answer families’ questions before and after they leave the hospital.
The research team is looking to see how many patients return to the hospital within 30 days of returning home. The team is also surveying families 7, 30, 60, and 90 days after they return home about:
- Their child’s quality of life
- How long it takes to return to their normal routine
- Their experiences with care
The research team is also looking to see if GET2HOME works differently for families with different income levels.
Families of children with CCD and hospital care teams are helping to plan and conduct this study.
Research methods at a glance
Design Element | Description |
---|---|
Design | Randomized controlled trial |
Population | 600 children with CCD |
Interventions/ Comparators |
|
Outcomes | Primary: urgent healthcare reutilization including unplanned hospital readmission, emergency room revisit, or urgent care visit Secondary: quality of life, return to baseline routine, transition process failures, transition quality |
Timeframe | 30-day follow-up for primary outcome |