Chronic Disease, Chronic Kidney Disease, Diabetes (DM), Heart Disease, Stroke
Conditions
Keywords
Chronic Disease Self-Management, Pragmatic Trial, Chronic Disease Education
Brief summary
Health education and self-management support are key facilitators of health behaviours. Moxie is a mixed media, self-management, education and support program for Albertans living with cardiovascular-related chronic conditions. Moxie is built upon our previous work within the ACCESS study (2015-21, n=4761), a RCT that previously tested the Moxie intervention in Alberta. Results demonstrated that MOXIE reduced the rate of hospitalizations (notably for hypertension, angina, hyper/hypoglycemia, heart failure decompensation, and acute kidney complications) by 34% in a population of low-income seniors living with cardiovascular-related chronic conditions. However, before Moxie can be effectively implemented province-wide, another trial is necessary to determine whether benefits can be observed in a larger cohort of patients with cardiovascular-related chronic conditions recruited immediately after hospital discharge (n=9000). Furthermore, the effectiveness of the two components of the ACCESS trial intervention will be assessed individually: (a) The Moxie Program, a tailored health and disease education component developed by a user-experience-centric design process incorporating patients, behavioural scientists, disease specialists, health system administrators and marketing/advertising professionals; and (b) the facilitated relay of clinical information to healthcare providers (letters). The trial is designed as a 2x2 factorial pragmatic, individual-level randomized pragmatic trial of these different interventions. This would yield the following groups: 1. Moxie SMES Program 2. Facilitated Relay 3. Moxie SMES Program and Facilitated Relay 4. True control Self-management education and support (SMES) intervention: This includes weekly physical mailers sent directly to patients' homes throughout the study containing information about chronic conditions, medication use, diet, physical activity, smoking cessation, and self-management/wellness principles. These messages will be refined by the social impact creative design partner and reviewed by clinicians and patients to ensure clinical safety and appropriate tone. Weekly mailers will encourage participants to enroll and consent to participate in the digital program by scanning a QR code or accessing a website where they will sign up for their own personalized Moxie mobile health app, complete a digital consent form and opt-in for electronic delivery of Moxie messages. Facilitated relay intervention: Participants allocated to this intervention will receive letters by mail, one addressed to them, one to their primary care provider, and one to their pharmacist. The letters will not be sent to their primary care provider directly; rather, they will be sent to patients who will be encouraged to take them to their primary care provider and pharmacist should they decide to do so. We hope this will empower patients to start discussions with their healthcare providers. This also supports patient autonomy by enabling patients to decide whether they want to take them to their provider or not. If for whatever reason they do not feel that this is going to be beneficial or of interest, they are not required to do so. The letter would contain a note to the patient's healthcare provider stating that their patient is at-risk of cardiovascular disease and that evidence has shown that the pharmacotherapy is effective in improving outcomes for patients similar to the participant. The primary outcome is readmission for cardiovascular-specific ambulatory care-sensitive conditions (ACSC) based on the most responsible diagnosis listed in CIHI Discharge Abstract Database-(DAD), using established algorithms within 12 months from randomization. This outcome includes all repeat admissions in the study period as recorded in the health record. This outcome is a count variable. We will calculate and compare each intervention arm's mean number and distribution of hospitalizations.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALMoxie SMES Letters
Weekly mailer for the Moxie SMES Program.
BEHAVIORALFacilitated Relay Letter
One-time Facilitated Relay letter for the participant to share with their healthcare provider.
Sponsors
University of Calgary
Emergence Creative
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
FACTORIAL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
DOUBLE (Investigator, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
40 Years to 85 Years
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Eligible participants will be adults aged 40-85 years who are being discharged to their home from general internal medicine or family medicine inpatient services (hospitalist) in one of 10 Alberta acute care facilities, whose admitting diagnosis was diabetes, coronary artery disease, heart failure, chronic kidney disease, or hypertension (see appendix for list of inclusion diagnoses).
Exclusion criteria
Individuals who live at the same address/household as a person who is already in the study and/or those discharged from hospitals to continuing care facilities, rehabilitation facilities or another hospital will not be eligible to take part in the study. Individuals whose goals of care at the time of discharge from acute care were oriented towards comfort (i.e. C1 or C2 Goals of Care) will not be eligible to take part in the study. Individuals with markers indicating lack of competency/capacity in their inpatient ConnectCare record such as anything but full capacity on the medical record (i.e. "incapacitated" or "needs review"), or presence of an alternative decision maker, agent, or legal guardian listed on the medical record.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hospital Readmissions | Within 12 months from randomization. | Readmission for cardiovascular-specific ambulatory care-sensitive conditions (ACSC) based on the most responsible diagnosis listed in CIHI-DAD (23). This outcome includes all repeat admissions in the study period as recorded in the AHS record that is sent to CIHI for inclusion in the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD). This outcome is a count variable. We will calculate and compare each intervention arm's mean number and distribution of hospitalizations. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Overall Mortality | Within 12 months of randomization. | Death, for the purpose of this study, refers to all-cause mortality. The data source for this outcome is the Canadian Vital Statistics Database (CVSD). |
| Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic Death | Within 12 months from randomization. | The CVSD also records an ICD-10 code for the most responsible cause of death provided by the most responsible healthcare provider (death in an inpatient facility) or the coroner's office (death in the community). This code can be used to identify those who die of relevant causes if the assigned ICD-10 code is within the following ranges: cardiovascular (I00-I99), diabetes (E10-E14), or kidney-related (N00-N29). |
| Cardioprotective Medication Initiation | Within 12 months from randomization. | Using data from Alberta's pharmacy dispensation repository, we will identify when a patient with an indicated condition starts a new medication that they were not previously taking in the prior 12 months. The combination of conditions and medications we will assess for include: Heart Failure= ACE/ARB/ARNI, SGLT2 inhibitors, MRA, Statins Chronic kidney disease with proteinuria (no diabetes)= ACE/ARB/ARNI, SGLT2 inhibitors, Statins Chronic kidney disease with proteinuria and diabetes= ACE/ARB/ARNI, SGLT2 inhibitors, Statins, Finerenone Chronic kidney disease without proteinuria= ACE/ARB/ARNI, Statins Coranary artery disease= ACE/ARB/ARNI, Statins Type 2 Diabetes= ACE/ARB/ARNI, SGLT2i or GLP1RA inhibitors, Statins |
| Medication Adherence | Within 12 months from randomization. | Adherence to medications such as \\ACEi, ARBs, Statins, and other cardioprotective medications listed above will be assessed by calculating the proportion of days covered (calculated using the formula below) (sum of days covered in the period of interest (POI)) ÷ (number of days in the POI) × 100% (24). PDC of 80% or greater is considered adequate adherence. This data is sourced from the Pharmaceutical Information Network, which records information (date, drug name, DIN, strength, quantity, duration) for all dispensed prescriptions from outpatient pharmacies in Alberta. |
| Primary Care and Specialty Utilization | Within 12 months from randomization. | Primary care and specialist visits are captured in the Physician Claims Database. Each encounter will be counted as one visit. This outcome is analysed as a count variable. We will calculate and compare the mean number and distribution of primary and specialist care visits. |
| Healthcare System Costs | Within 12 months from randomization. | We will include costs for hospitalization and ED visits, physician claims (specialist and primary care physician visit and procedure billing costs), prescription medications, nonphysician ambulatory costs (day medicine and day surgery clinics), and outpatient diagnostic imaging and laboratory costs. The total costs will be calculated as the sum of these costs. Alberta Health uses Canadian Institute of Health Information case-mix grouper methods to estimate hospital costs and ambulatory-case costing methods to estimate emergency department costs. Physician claims will be based on the amount paid by Alberta Health. The cost of medications will be estimated by combining a database containing a comprehensive list of medications dispensed to all Alberta residents with a price list from Alberta Blue Cross, including dispensing fee. Diagnostic imaging and laboratory costs will be based on estimates provided by Alberta Health. |
Outcome results
None listed