Autonomous Telephone Follow-up After Cataract Surgery
- Conditions
- CataractAfter Cataract
- Interventions
- Other: Dora
- Registration Number
- NCT05213390
- Lead Sponsor
- University of Plymouth
- Brief Summary
This project will apply AI technology to meet the gap between increasing demand and limited capacity of high- volume healthcare services. The project will develop evidence that will support the safe deployment of Ufonia's automated telemedicine platform to deliver calls to cataract surgery patients at two large NHS hospital trusts.
The proposed study will implement DORA in addition to the current standard of care for a cohort of patients at Imperial College Healthcare Trust and Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The study will evaluate the agreement of DORA's decision with an expert clinician. In addition it will test the acceptability of the solution for patients and clinicians; the sensitivity and specificity of the system in deciding if a patient requires additional review; and the health economic benefits of the solution to patients (reduced time and travel) and the local healthcare system. If successful, a proposal will be developed to roll the solution out to all patients at each site in anticipation of an application to a late phase award for wider NHS deployment.
- Detailed Description
Background
Due to an ageing population and increased expectation, the demand for many services is exceeding the capacity of the clinical workforce. As a result, staff are facing a crisis of burnout from being pressured to deliver high- volume workloads, driving increasing costs for providers. Artificial intelligence, in the form of conversational agents, presents a possible opportunity to enable efficiencies in the delivery of care.
Aims and Objectives
This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness, usability and acceptability of DORA - an AI-enabled autonomous telemedicine call - for detection of post-operative cataract surgery patients who require further assessment. The study's objectives are: to establish efficacy of DORA's decision making in comparison to an expert human clinician; baseline sensitivity and specificity for detection of true complications; evaluation of patient acceptability; evidence for cost-effectiveness; and to capture data that may support further studies.
Project plan and methods used
Based on implementation science, the interdisciplinary study will be a mixed-methods phase one pilot establishing inter-observer reliability; as well as usability and acceptability.
Timelines for delivery
The study will last eighteen months: seven months of evaluation and intervention refinement, nine months of implementation and follow-up, and two months of post-evaluation analysis and write-up.
Anticipated Impact and Dissemination
The project's key contributions will be evidence on artificial intelligence voice conversational agent effectiveness, and associated usability and acceptability. Results will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals and at international medical sciences and engineering conferences.
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- COMPLETED
- Sex
- All
- Target Recruitment
- 225
- Willing and able to provide informed consent;
- Aged 18 years or older;
- On the waiting list for routine cataract surgery. Cataract surgery as part of a combined procedure with other ocular surgery will not be included;
- No history or presence of significant ocular comorbidities that would be expected to alter the risks of cataract surgery or normal post-operative follow-up schedule. Note that significant ocular comorbidities do not include stable, chronic, or inactive ocular conditions such as amblyopia, drop-controlled stable glaucoma or ocular hypertension, previous squint surgery, inactive macular pathology, previous refractive surgery, or previous vitreoretinal surgery with stable retina.
- Individuals with any condition that could preclude the ability to comply with the study or follow-up procedures;
- Presence of ocular or systemic uncontrolled disease (unless deemed not clinically significant by the Investigator and Sponsor);
- Involved in current research related to this technology or been involved in related research to this technology prior to recruitment;
- Cognitive difficulties, hearing impairment or non-English speakers;
- History of current or severe, unstable or uncontrolled systemic disease (unless deemed not clinically significant by the Investigator and Sponsor).
Study & Design
- Study Type
- INTERVENTIONAL
- Study Design
- SINGLE_GROUP
- Arm && Interventions
Group Intervention Description Dora follow-up phone call Dora DORA uses a variety of AI technologies to deliver the patient follow-up call, including: speech transcription, natural language understanding, a machine-learning conversation model to enable contextual conversations, and speech generation. Together, these technologies cover the input, processing and analysis, and output needed to maintain a natural conversation. DORA is configured to deliver calls through a telephone connection as a real-time, stand-alone system: the operator inputs individual patient details to initiate the call and completes a summary in the electronic health record (EHR) afterwards. The entire conversation will be supervised by a clinician. This clinician will be able to interrupt the call at any point if the system fails, the patient struggles to interact with it, or DORA does not collect sufficient information from the patient. The clinician will record a clinical assessment which will be compared to the DORA assessment.
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Agreement Inter-rater reliability was assessed based on data collected during Dora calls, which lasted an average of 7.5 minutes Inter-rater reliability: the degree of agreement between DORA and the clinician on their assessments of the individual symptoms and the management plan; Whether or not the clinician had to interrupt the call to ask clarifying questions
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Clinical Complications Identified or Missed by DORA System Up to 90 days post surgery Clinical data was collected from patients' electronic health record (EHR) up to 90 days postoperatively to capture numbers of participants 'recommended discharge' by Dora R1 with subsequent unexpected management change
Calls Completed Without Intervention Dora calls lasted an average of 7.5 minutes Number of autonomous calls that were completed without needing any intervention from the supervising clinician; Clinician-reported reasons for asking clarifying questions
System Usability Usability assessments were completed up to 6 months after the Dora call Measured using the System Usability Scale (minimum of 0, maximum of 100, higher scores indicate better usability)
Usability of Telehealth System Implementation Usability was assessed up to 6 months after the call Measured using the Telehealth Usability Questionnaire (minimum score of 1, maximum score of 5, averaged across 19 items; higher scores indicate better usability)
Qualitative Patient Perspectives of Usability Semi-structured interview call, lasting up to 30 minutes, conducted up to 6 months after the Dora call Qualitative feedback from semi-structured interviews
Acceptability of AI Follow-up Phone Call Semi-structured interview call, lasting up to 30 minutes, conducted up to 6 months after the Dora call Qualitative feedback from semi-structured interviews
Satisfaction With AI Follow-up Phone Call Semi-structured interview call, lasting up to 30 minutes, conducted up to 6 months after the Dora call Qualitative feedback from semi-structured interviews
Appropriateness of AI for Follow-up Assessment Semi-structured interview call, lasting up to 30 minutes, conducted up to 6 months after the Dora call Qualitative feedback from semi-structured interviews
Cost Impact Conducted 6 months after baseline A cost analysis compared the direct costs of face-to-face (F2F) follow-up at Imperial with Dora R1 (in Oxford, patients do not have routine postoperative follow-up). Assumptions included annual costs for various healthcare professionals and the duration of F2F follow-up appointments (estimated at 30 min).
Subsequent Unplanned Follow-up Up to 90 days post surgery Clinical data was collected from patients' electronic health record (EHR) up to 90 days postoperatively to capture numbers of participants 'recommended discharge' by Dora R1 with subsequent unplanned review.
Trial Locations
- Locations (2)
Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
🇬🇧Oxford, United Kingdom
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
🇬🇧London, United Kingdom