Rural Hospital-Level Care at Home for Acutely Ill Adults

NCT ID: NCT05256303

Last Updated: 2025-11-12

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

160 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2022-02-16

Study Completion Date

2024-01-17

Brief Summary

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This study examines the implications of providing hospital-level care in rural homes.

Detailed Description

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Home hospital is hospital-level care at home for acutely ill patients. In multiple publications mostly in urban environments, home hospital care delivered cost-effective, high-quality, excellent experience care with similar quality and safety as traditional hospital care. Most home hospital models deliver care in urban environments, not in rural environments.

To determine the effect of home hospital care in rural homes, the investigators propose to the following randomized control trial.

Conditions

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Infections Heart Failure Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Asthma Gout Flare Chronic Kidney Diseases Hypertensive Urgency Atrial Fibrillation Rapid Anticoagulation Diabetes and Its Complications End of Life/Desires Only Medical Management

Keywords

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home hospital hospital at home hospital in the home

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Primary Study Purpose

TREATMENT

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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Home Hospital care

Patients receive hospital-level care in their home, as a substitute to traditional hospital care.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Home Hospital care

Intervention Type OTHER

Patients receive hospital-level care in their home

Traditional Hospital care

Patients receive hospital-level care in the hospital.

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Traditional Hospital care

Intervention Type OTHER

Patients receive hospital-level care in the hospital.

Interventions

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Home Hospital care

Patients receive hospital-level care in their home

Intervention Type OTHER

Traditional Hospital care

Patients receive hospital-level care in the hospital.

Intervention Type OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* \>=18 years old
* Any infectious process (e.g., pneumonia, diverticulitis, cellulitis, complicated urinary tract infection)
* Heart failure exacerbation
* Asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease exacerbation
* Atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response
* Diabetes and its complications
* Venous thromboembolism
* Gout exacerbation
* Chronic kidney disease with volume overload
* Hypertensive urgency
* End of life / desires only medical management


* Lives in a rural area that can be served by the RHH team.
* Has capacity to consent to study OR can assent to study and has proxy who can consent (see subject enrollment, below)
* Can identify a potential caregiver who agrees to stay with patient for first 24 hours of admission. Caregiver must be competent to call care team if a problem is evident to her/him. After 24 hours, this caregiver should be available for as-needed spot checks on the patient.

* This criterion may be waived for highly competent patients at the patient and clinician's discretion.


* Age \>= 18 years old
* Has capacity to consent to study
* Lives within 15 minutes travel time.


* The rural home hospital clinical team will be identified by the site PI at each study site prior to the start of the study. The site PI will recruit local RNs and/or EMT-Ps, and attending physicians (MD) to deploy and provide rural home hospital care.
* Any member of the rural home hospital clinical team (a clinician providing care in the home) who will be participating in research activities, including the screening and recruitment of patients for the rural home hospital intervention and/or providing care to rural patients that enroll in the intervention.

Exclusion Criteria

* Patient exclusion clinical criteria:

* Acute delirium, as determined by the Confusion Assessment Method
* Cannot establish peripheral access by any means
* Secondary condition: active non-melanoma/prostate cancer, end-stage renal disease, acute myocardial infarction, acute cerebral vascular accident, acute hemorrhage (unless part of end of life pathway)
* Primary diagnosis requires multiple or routine administrations of intravenous narcotics for pain control
* Cannot independently ambulate to bedside commode, unless home-based aides are available
* As deemed by on-call MD, patient likely to require any of the following procedures that have not already occurred: computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, endoscopic procedure, blood transfusion, cardiac stress test, or surgery (unless these can be coordinated with appropriate facilities during the home hospitalization)
* For pneumonia:

* Most recent CURB65 \> 3: new confusion, BUN \> 19mg/dL, respiratory rate\>=30/min, systolic blood pressure\<90mmHg, Age\>=65 (\<14% 30-day mortality)15
* Most recent SMRTCO \> 2: systolic blood pressure \< 90mmHg (2pts), multilobar CXR involvement (1pt), respiratory rate \>= 30/min, heart rate \>= 125, new confusion, oxygen saturation \<= 90% (\<10% chance of intensive respiratory or vasopressor support)16
* Absence of clear infiltrate on imaging
* Cavitary lesion on imaging
* Pulmonary effusion of unknown etiology
* O2 saturation \< 90% despite 5L O2
* For heart failure:

* Has a left ventricular assist device
* GWTG-HF17 (\>10% in-hospital mortality) or ADHERE18 (high risk or intermediate risk 1)\*
* Severe pulmonary hypertension
* For complicated urinary tract infection:

* Absence of pyuria
* Most recent qSOFA \> 1 (SBP≤100 mmHg, RR≥22, GCS\<15 \[any AMS\]) (if sepsis, \>10% mortality)19
* For other infection

* Most recent qSOFA \> 1 (SBP≤100 mmHg, RR≥22, GCS\<15 \[any AMS\]) (if sepsis, \>10% mortality)19
* For COPD

* BAP-65 score \> 3 (BUN\>25, altered mental status, HR\>109, age\>65) (\<13% chance in-hospital mortality): exercise caution
* For asthma

o Peak expiratory flow \< 50% of normal: exercise caution
* For diabetes and its complications

o Requires IV insulin
* For hypertensive urgency

* Systolic blood pressure \> 190 mmHg
* Evidence of end-organ damage; for example, acute kidney injury, focal neurologic deficits, myocardial infarction
* For atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response

* Likely to require cardioversion
* New atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular response
* Unstable blood pressure, respiratory rate, or oxygenation
* Despite IV beta and/or calcium channel blockade in the emergency department, HR remains \> 125 and SBP remains different than baseline
* Less than 1 hour of time has elapsed with HR \< 125 and SBP similar or higher than baseline
* Home hospital census is full

* GWTG-HF: AHA Get with the Guidelines: SBP, BUN, Na, Age, HR, Black race, COPD ADHERE: Acute decompensated heart failure national registry: BUN, creatinine, SBP


* Undomiciled
* No working heat (October-April), no working air conditioning if forecast \> 80°F (June-September), or no running water
* On methadone requiring daily pickup of medication
* In police custody
* Resides in facility that provides on-site medical care (e.g., skilled nursing facility)
* Domestic violence screen positive
Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sponsors

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The Thompson Family Foundation Inc

UNKNOWN

Sponsor Role collaborator

Brigham and Women's Hospital

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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David Levine

Dr. David Levine MD, MPH, MA, Director

Responsibility Role PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Locations

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Blessing Health System

Quincy, Illinois, United States

Site Status

Appalachian Regional Healthcare, Inc.

Hazard, Kentucky, United States

Site Status

Wetaskiwin Hospital and Care Centre

Wetaskiwin, Alberta, Canada

Site Status

Countries

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United States Canada

References

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Hung WW, Ross JS, Farber J, Siu AL. Evaluation of the Mobile Acute Care of the Elderly (MACE) service. JAMA Intern Med. 2013 Jun 10;173(11):990-6. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.478.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 23608775 (View on PubMed)

Fong TG, Tulebaev SR, Inouye SK. Delirium in elderly adults: diagnosis, prevention and treatment. Nat Rev Neurol. 2009 Apr;5(4):210-20. doi: 10.1038/nrneurol.2009.24.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 19347026 (View on PubMed)

2014 National and State Healthcare-Associated Infections Progress Report.; 2016. http://www.cdc.gov/hai/surveillance/progress-report/index.html. Accessed April 19, 2016.

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Counsell SR, Holder CM, Liebenauer LL, Palmer RM, Fortinsky RH, Kresevic DM, Quinn LM, Allen KR, Covinsky KE, Landefeld CS. Effects of a multicomponent intervention on functional outcomes and process of care in hospitalized older patients: a randomized controlled trial of Acute Care for Elders (ACE) in a community hospital. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2000 Dec;48(12):1572-81. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2000.tb03866.x.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 11129745 (View on PubMed)

Leff B, Burton L, Mader SL, Naughton B, Burl J, Inouye SK, Greenough WB 3rd, Guido S, Langston C, Frick KD, Steinwachs D, Burton JR. Hospital at home: feasibility and outcomes of a program to provide hospital-level care at home for acutely ill older patients. Ann Intern Med. 2005 Dec 6;143(11):798-808. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-143-11-200512060-00008.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 16330791 (View on PubMed)

Cryer L, Shannon SB, Van Amsterdam M, Leff B. Costs for 'hospital at home' patients were 19 percent lower, with equal or better outcomes compared to similar inpatients. Health Aff (Millwood). 2012 Jun;31(6):1237-43. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2011.1132.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 22665835 (View on PubMed)

Levine DM, Ouchi K, Blanchfield B, Diamond K, Licurse A, Pu CT, Schnipper JL. Hospital-Level Care at Home for Acutely Ill Adults: a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial. J Gen Intern Med. 2018 May;33(5):729-736. doi: 10.1007/s11606-018-4307-z. Epub 2018 Feb 6.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 29411238 (View on PubMed)

Levine DM, Ouchi K, Blanchfield B, Saenz A, Burke K, Paz M, Diamond K, Pu CT, Schnipper JL. Hospital-Level Care at Home for Acutely Ill Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Ann Intern Med. 2020 Jan 21;172(2):77-85. doi: 10.7326/M19-0600. Epub 2019 Dec 17.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 31842232 (View on PubMed)

Bureau UC. What is Rural America?https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america.html. Published 2017. Accessed May 31, 2019.

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Garcia MC, Rossen LM, Bastian B, Faul M, Dowling NF, Thomas CC, Schieb L, Hong Y, Yoon PW, Iademarco MF. Potentially Excess Deaths from the Five Leading Causes of Death in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Counties - United States, 2010-2017. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2019 Nov 8;68(10):1-11. doi: 10.15585/mmwr.ss6810a1.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 31697657 (View on PubMed)

Parker K, Horowitz J, Brown A, Fry R, Cohn D, Igielnik R. What Unites and Divides Urban, Suburban and Rural Communities.; 2018. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/wpcontent/uploads/sites/3/2018/05/Pew-Research-Center-Community-Type-Full-Report-FINAL.pdf. Accessed May 31, 2019

Reference Type BACKGROUND

Creditor MC. Hazards of hospitalization of the elderly. Ann Intern Med. 1993 Feb 1;118(3):219-23. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-118-3-199302010-00011.

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PMID: 8417639 (View on PubMed)

Joynt KE, Orav EJ, Jha AK. Mortality rates for Medicare beneficiaries admitted to critical access and non-critical access hospitals, 2002-2010. JAMA. 2013 Apr 3;309(13):1379-87. doi: 10.1001/jama.2013.2366.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 23549583 (View on PubMed)

Joynt KE, Harris Y, Orav EJ, Jha AK. Quality of care and patient outcomes in critical access rural hospitals. JAMA. 2011 Jul 6;306(1):45-52. doi: 10.1001/jama.2011.902.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 21730240 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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2021P000334

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id