The Virtual Atrial Fibrillation Clinic: Improving Specialty Care Delivery

Background: Specialty atrial fibrillation (AF) clinics have been shown to reduce AF-related hospitalizations, emergency department readmissions, and overall healthcare costs, while at the same time improving health behaviours and quality of life for patients. An AF clinic delivered virtually may offer a viable approach to remove barriers to accessing specialty care, but currently, no virtual AF models exist. However, virtual clinics that use new and emerging digital and communications technologies have been used in managing patients with a variety of chronic diseases: inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, kidney disease, ophthalmology problems, and for post-operative follow-up (e.g., orthopedic surgery). They have been found to facilitate rapid referral, improve communication with providers, improve clinical indicators, improve self-efficacy, and achieve knowledge comparable to usual care. Purpose: The primary purpose of phase 3 of the project is to implement and evaluate an alternative model of care, a Virtual AF Clinic (vAFC) to referred patients with AF living in communities outside the Greater Vancouver area.

Methodology:

Design: We will test two modes of AF care: 1) virtual AF care (intervention group) and 2) in person AF clinic care (control group). The intervention group will receive the vAFC. The vAFC will include up to four scheduled encounters with the NPs/cardiologist: an initial encounter following baseline work-up (e.g., Holter, echo) and at 4 to 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months. For the duration of the intervention, the vAFC group will also receive access to a website with specific AF educational content and resources. The control group will receive usual onsite AF care provided by the Vancouver AF clinic. Recruitment: A total of 60-80 patients with AF, 30-40 allocated to each group, will be recruited from the Vancouver AF clinic. This sample size is consistent with recommendations for pilot/feasibility studies. AF clinic staff will identify eligible patients, and will send them a "letter of initial contact" letter. Patients will contact or be contacted by the research team who will provide additional study details, answer questions, conduct screening for eligibility, and obtain consent. Data Collection: Intervention and control groups will complete the same repeated measures during the study period. Demographics will be obtained at baseline. The primary outcomes: AF

Knowledge and AF Quality of Life, and secondary outcomes:

Healthcare Utilization, and Perceived Stress, will be obtained at three time points: baseline (t1) (following consent, prior to randomization), 3 months (t2), and 6 months (t3).The secondary outcomes: Lifestyle Behaviors, Physical Activity, and Patient Satisfaction will be obtained at t1 and t3. Questionnaire data will be collected using the online survey program Qualtrics. Each participant will be assigned a unique identifier code and emailed a link to the survey and consent form once they have completed eligibility screening. Patient health history, stroke risk, bleeding risk, and medications will be extracted from the consult letter sent to the AF clinic during patient referral. Website usage will be measured for each participant using Google Analytics. Following the study, approximately eight participants from each study arm will be invited to participate in an hour-long interview. Data Analysis: The focus of the pilot will be on effect sizes, as a