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Comparing Healthcare Visit Recording and Open Notes to Improve Chronic iLlness Care Experience in Older Adults

Comparing Healthcare Visit Recording and Open Notes to Improve the Chronic Illness Care Experience for Older Adults (The CHRONICLE Trial)

Status
Recruiting
Phases
Unknown
Study type
Interventional
Source
ClinicalTrials.gov
Registry ID
NCT05955339
Acronym
CHRONICLE
Enrollment
1022
Registered
2023-07-21
Start date
2024-01-24
Completion date
2027-06-14
Last updated
2026-05-18

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension

Keywords

Audio Recording, Diabetes Mellitus, Hypertension, Patient-centered communication, Self-management, Older adults, Chronic conditions, After visit summary, Quality of life, Multimorbidity

Brief summary

CHRONICLE is a randomized trial assessing the comparative effectiveness of providing written visit information via the patient portal (NOTES) versus NOTES plus visit audio recording (AUDIO) to older adult patients with chronic diseases on quality of life and other outcomes. During the trial, the team will also invite caregivers identified by patients to join the project.

Detailed description

The research team is working with primary care clinics at three health systems across the country to enroll adults ages 65 and older who are managing diabetes or high blood pressure, plus one other disease. The team is assigning patients by chance to one of two groups. Each group will have an equal numbers of patients. Patients in one group will get access to visit notes through the patient portal. The research team will give patients guidance on how to find and use their visit notes. Patients in the other group will not only have access to their visit notes patients but also get access to audio-recordings of their visits. After each visit, patients in both groups will receive emails to review their visit information: 1) two days after their visit to remind them of their visit discussion and any tasks they may have, and 2) three days before their next visit, they will be asked to think of any changes from their last visit and to make a list of three things they want to talk to their doctor about. The team is comparing changes reported by patients over six months in quality of life, satisfaction, self-management ability, treatment adherence, and visit communication. The team will also invite caregivers identified by patients to join the project. They will show patients how to share their visit notes or recordings with caregivers. Caregivers will report on changes in how prepared they feel to provide care, burden related to caregiving, and how much they felt part of the patient's visit conversation.

Interventions

OTHERNOTES

The intervention will include: (1) a brief training on using the patient portal to access written visit information with assistance in setting up patient portal accounts where necessary (including strategies to share notes with a caregiver), (2) post-visit reminders to use the patient portal to access written visit information.

OTHERAUDIO

The intervention will include: (1) audio recording all visits with the study clinician for six months, (2) training on how to record visits and access visit recordings, and (3) post-visit reminders listen to the visit recordings.

Sponsors

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Lead SponsorOTHER
The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston
CollaboratorOTHER
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
CollaboratorOTHER
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
CollaboratorOTHER
Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute
CollaboratorOTHER

Study design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE

Intervention model description

Patients will be randomly allocated to NOTES or NOTES+AUDIO using a block randomization technique with the clinician acting as the blocking variable. This strategy will ensure an equal number of patients per clinician will be randomly assigned to each study arm.

Eligibility

Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

PATIENTS: Inclusion Criteria: * ≥ 65 years; * With multimorbidity (diabetes or hypertension plus one of the following: arthritis (osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis), asthma, atrial fibrillation, Alzheimer's disease and related dementia (not severe), cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, depression, heart disease, heart failure, hyperlipidemia, osteoporosis, kidney disease and stroke. Patients with diabetes plus hypertension are eligible. * Have had two or more clinic visits in the previous 12 months; * Plan on receiving ongoing care at the clinic with the enrolled clinician for the subsequent 6 months; * Do not have vision or hearing problems that cannot be corrected; and * Have not recorded a clinic visit for personal use in the past 6 months

Exclusion criteria

* With no capacity to consent to the project; * With schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, current substance-use disorders, uncorrected hearing or visual impairment with no adjustments to support accessing the interventions or surveys; * Living in skilled nursing homes or hospice, because they engage less in self-management; * With cognitive impairment as identified by a score of ≤4 on the six-item screener (SIS) * Lacking internet access; * Who do not speak English or Spanish; * Who (i) do not have access to a personal email, (ii) do not have an email address shared with a family member or patient-identified caregiver, and/or (iii) are not interested in creating a personal email as this would prevent them from engaging with the intervention(s); and * Who do not wish to create a patient portal account, if they do not already have one as this would prevent them from engaging with the intervention(s). CAREGIVERS: Inclusion criteria: * Agree to their identified role as a caregiver; * Speak English or Spanish; * Have capacity to consent to research participation; and * ≥ 18 years.

Design outcomes

Primary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Quality of Life - Mental functioning6 months from enrollmentQuality of life using Global PROMIS (Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System) is a 10-item patient reported measure with two domains: mental and physical health. Domain scores range from 4 to 20, with higher scores representing better health.
Quality of Life - Physical functioning6 months from enrollmentQuality of life using Global PROMIS (Patient-Reported Outcome Measurement Information System) is a 10-item patient reported measure with two domains: mental and physical health. Domain scores range from 4 to 20, with higher scores representing better health.

Secondary

MeasureTime frameDescription
Self-management ability6 months from enrollmentSelf-management ability using the Patient Activation Measure-Short Form is a 13-item patient reported measure. Scores are range from 0 (low activation) to 100 (high activation).
Medication adherence6 months from enrollmentMedication adherence using Adherence to Refills and Medications (ARMS-7), an seven-item measure with two domains: i) medication taking and ii) medication refilling. ARMS-7 scores range from 7 (high adherence) to 28 (low adherence).
General satisfaction6 months from enrollmentGeneral satisfaction using the two-item general satisfaction sub-scale from the Patient Satisfaction Questionnaire-18 (PSQ-18). The subscale is scored as a mean of the two questions with a potential score ranging from 1 to 5. Higher scores indicate more satisfaction.
Visit communication style and shared decision-making6 months from enrollmentVisit communication style and shared decision making using 14 items (6 of 7 subscales) from the Interpersonal Process of Care (IPC) survey. Each of the 6 subscales has a potential score of 1 to 5. Direction of the score depends on the subscale.

Countries

United States

Contacts

CONTACTPaul J Barr, PhD
paul.j.barr@dartmouth.edu603-646-7016
CONTACTRenata W. Yen, PhD
renata.west.yen@dartmouth.edu603-646-5670
PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORPaul J Barr, PhD

Dartmouth College

PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORKerri L Cavanaugh, MD

Vanderbilit University Medical Center

PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORMeredith C Masel, PhD

University Texas Medical Branch

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: May 19, 2026