Effectiveness of Patient-centered Community Health Worker Support to Help Patients Control Chronic Disease

Overview

The purpose of this proposal is to compare the effectiveness of community health worker (CHW) support vs. usual primary care for helping chronically-ill, low-SES patients to improve control of chronic conditions. Upon enrollment each patient will select one of their multiple chronic conditions as a focus for the trial and work with his/her PCP to set a chronic disease management goal. Patients are then randomized to receive usual primary care vs. CHW support for moving towards that goal.

Full Title of Study: “Community Health Worker Support to Help Patients Control Chronic Disease”

Study Type

  • Study Type: Interventional
  • Study Design
    • Allocation: Randomized
    • Intervention Model: Single Group Assignment
    • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
    • Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
  • Study Primary Completion Date: May 2015

Interventions

  • Behavioral: CHW Goal Support
    • IMPaCT CHWs will perform the following functions, depending on the needs of the participants: 1) Deconstructing Distal Goals into Proximal Goals: IMPaCT CHWs will help patients to deconstruct collaborative distal clinical goals into patient driven proximal goals and develop strategies for achieving each proximal goal.2) Creating Roadmaps: Roadmaps are individualized strategies for achieving each proximal goal identified by patients. 3) IMPaCT Partners conduct weekly follow-up with patients through either telephone or home visit in order to support the achievement of proximal goals. As part of these followup encounters, CHWs ask patients to measure their chronic disease control during their weekly followup calls/visits. 4) Group: CHWs and their Project Manager run a group session for patients in the IMPaCT arm. This group meets weekly and is a forum for patients to discuss common issues around chronic disease management and form a social support network.

Arms, Groups and Cohorts

  • Experimental: CHW Goal Support
    • IMPaCT CHWs will perform the following functions, depending on the needs of the participants: 1) Deconstructing Distal Goals into Proximal Goals: IMPaCT CHWs will help patients to deconstruct collaborative distal clinical goals into patient driven proximal goals and develop strategies for achieving each proximal goal.2) Creating Roadmaps: Roadmaps are individualized strategies for achieving each proximal goal identified by patients. 3) IMPaCT CHWs conduct weekly follow-up with patients through either telephone or home visit in order to support the achievement of proximal goals. As part of these followup encounters, CHWs ask patients to measure their chronic disease control during their weekly followup calls/visits. 4) Group: CHWs and their Project Manager run a group session for patients in the IMPaCT arm. This group meets weekly and is a forum for patients to discuss common issues around chronic disease management and form a social support network.
  • No Intervention: Usual Primary Care
    • Patients will be encouraged to make follow-up appointments as needed with their primary care clinic for support towards their health goals. During these appointments, clinicians will help patients determine progress made on existing proximal goals, adjust goals based on self-efficacy, and help patients to create new proximal goals as needed. They will also work with PCPs to adjust medications when appropriate, provide health behavior education and make referrals to community-based services based on patient need.

Clinical Trial Outcome Measures

Primary Measures

  • Change in standardized score
    • Time Frame: Six months after enrollment
    • Six months after enrollment, the IMPaCT arm will have a higher (more negative) mean change in standardized score for chronic disease outcome of interest compared with usual care

Secondary Measures

  • Goal achievement
    • Time Frame: Six months after enrollment
    • Six months after enrollment, patients in the IMPaCT group will have higher proportion of patients who achieve their individualized chronic disease management goal compared with usual care
  • SF-12
    • Time Frame: Six months after enrollment,
    • Six months after enrollment, patients in the IMPaCT group will greater improvements in their self-rated health (as measured by mean change in MCS and PCS of the SF-12) than patients receiving usual care.
  • CAHPS PCMH (Communication, Self-Management Support, Comprehensiveness of Care)
    • Time Frame: Six months after enrollment
    • Six months after enrollment, the IMPaCT arm will have higher perceived quality of patient-centered medical care (as measured by the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Patient-Centered Medical Home (CAHPS PCMH) survey) than the usual care arm. Specifically, we will measure the CAHPS PCMH domains pertaining to Self-Management Support and Comprehensiveness of Care.
  • Hospitalization
    • Time Frame: 6 months after enrollment
    • Patients in the IMpaCT arm with have a lower rate of hospitalizations than the usual care arm at 6 months after enrollment.
  • Patient Activation
    • Time Frame: Six months after enrollment
    • Six months after enrollment, patients in the IMPaCT arm will have greater improvements in their activation (as measured by mean change in PAM score) compared with patients in the usual care arm.

Participating in This Clinical Trial

Inclusion Criteria

  • Patient of target practices for at least 1 yr defined as having one office visit within preceding 12 month – Home ZIP code including ANY of the following: 1. 19104 2. 19131 3. 19139 4. 19143 5. 19146 – 2 or more of the following conditions: 1. Obesity (BMI greater than 30), 2. HTN (ICD9 relating to HTN in EMR), 3. DM (ICD9 relating to DM in EMR), 4. Asthma/COPD and tobacco dependence (ICD9 for asthma or COPD in EMR AND documentation of tobacco use) – Uninsured, insured by Medicaid or dually eligible for Medicaid/Managed Medicare – Patients who have scheduled appointments in the future. Exclusion Criteria:

  • Will not provide informed consent for this study. – Does not have the capacity to provide informed consent for this study. – Previously enrolled in this study

Gender Eligibility: All

Minimum Age: N/A

Maximum Age: N/A

Are Healthy Volunteers Accepted: No

Investigator Details

  • Lead Sponsor
    • University of Pennsylvania
  • Provider of Information About this Clinical Study
    • Sponsor
  • Overall Official(s)
    • Shreya Kangovi, Principal Investigator, University of Pennsylvania

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