The Impact of Rideshare Transportation Services on Appointment Adherence

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Social Determinants of Health; Primary Health Care; Transportation; Appointments and Schedules
• Interventions: Other: Rideshare-based transportation

• Registration Number: NCT02955433
• Lead Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania

Brief Summary

This study is a prospective clinical trial designed to primarily test the impact of rideshare-based transportation services from a digital transportation network, Lyft, on reducing primary care clinic missed appointments--a composite outcome of no-shows and same day cancellations--for Medicaid patients. The study population consists of West Philadelphia residents who are established patients at two of the Penn Medicine Primary Care Practices within the University of Pennsylvania Health System. The study subjects are allocated into the intervention or control arm using a pseudorandomization approach - those receiving an appointment reminder on an even calendar day are in the intervention arm and odd calendar day calls are in the control arm.

Secondary outcomes include the time of arrival to the clinics relative to actual appointment time (both arms), prospective utilization of acute care settings (both arms), prospective utilization of primary care (both arms), and description of programmatic metrics in the intervention arm (travel time, misuse, and costs). The investigators will assess the patient experience after each ride using a telephone-based survey and in-depth interviews. All adults with established primary care at the Penn Medicine Clinics, who have Medicaid, and do not require wheelchair accessible rides will be eligible for the rideshare service. The investigators hypothesize that individuals offered a rideshare-based transportation service will have a decreased proportion of missed appointments and same day cancellations as those not offered the service.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2016-10
• Study First Submitted: 2016-10-31
• Study First Submitted QC: 2016-11-02
• Study First Posted: 2016-11-04
• Primary Completion: 2017-04
• Study Completion: 2017-11
• Status Verified: 2019-07
• Last Update Submitted: 2019-07-03
• Last Update Posted: 2019-07-08

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 786

Inclusion Criteria

• Patients insured by Medicaid
• Established primary care patient at the Penn Medicine Clinics
• Address in West Philadelphia zip code

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Exclusion Criteria

• Requiring wheelchair accessible transportation. We are unable to guarantee vehicles that will be able to accommodate these patients' physical needs.

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Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Rideshare	Rideshare-based transportation	The intervention arm will receive an appointment reminder and free transportation for one appointment to travel between the patient's home and primary care clinic using a rideshare-based transportation service.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
The proportion of missed appointments (no-shows and same-day cancellation) in the intervention arm and the control arm	Within 2 days of enrollment	The missed appointment proportion is based on the one appointment for which patients were contacted to receive a free ride

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Arrival time to clinic relative to the scheduled time (both arms)	Within 2 days of enrollment
Post-intervention, utilization frequency of primary care (both arms)	7-days, 30-days, and 6 months post-appointment
Post-intervention, frequency of missed primary care appointments (both arms)	30-days and 6-months post-appointment
Post-intervention, utilization frequency of acute care settings (both arms)	7-days, 30-days, and 6 months post-appointment

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Penn Internal Medicine Primary Care Practice; 🇺🇸 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States