Implementation of the Hospital to Home (H2H) Heart Failure Initiative

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Heart Failure
• Interventions: Other: Community of Practice Facilitation; Other: Usual Care

• Registration Number: NCT02148341
• Lead Sponsor: VA Palo Alto Health Care System

Brief Summary

This study determines if a community of practice of clinicians and quality improvement specialists can be used to implement a national quality initiative known as Hospital to Home (H2H). This quality initative is designed to reduced readmission rates for patients with heart failure or heart attack by improving the transition of care upon discharge.

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study Start: 2010-01
• Status Verified: 2013-02
• Study First Submitted: 2013-02-12
• Primary Completion: 2013-07
• Study Completion: 2013-07
• Study First Submitted QC: 2014-05-27
• Last Update Submitted: 2014-05-27
• Study First Posted: 2014-05-28
• Last Update Posted: 2014-05-28

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 122

Inclusion Criteria

• VA medical centers are the unit of randomization. A medical center will be included if had at least 20 patients discharged with a principal diagnosis of heart failure in 2008

Exclusion Criteria

Not provided

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Community of Practice Facilitation	Community of Practice Facilitation	Medical Centers assigned to this arm will recieive the communtiy of practice facilitation. In this process we will contact existing members of the community of practice (called the Heart Failure Network) at the facility as well as attempt to identify new providers and other staff at the facility with an interest in improving heart failure care. The facilitation includes: describing the national H2H program, providing talking points and strategies for local providers to obtain support from their local facility to initiate local projects related to H2H, providing a forum for successful sites to describe how they initiated projects to sites yet to initiate projects.
Usual Care	Usual Care	Medical centers in this arm will hear of H2H through usual routs (calls with facilty Directors and Chiefs of staff).

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
H2H enrollment	6 months	H2H enrollment by the facility as determined by the H2H program of the American College of Cardiology and Institute for Healthcare Improvement

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
quality improvement programs initiated due to H2H	6 months	A new quality improvement initiated that addressess one of the 3 areas of H2H focus. These include, medication reconcilliation, early follow-up after discharge, and symptom recognition.

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

VA Palo Alto Health Care System; 🇺🇸 Palo Alto, California, United States