Improving Virtual Care of Arthritis: Integrating a Smartphone App Into the EHR for Improved Timeliness of Visits

Study Purpose

The overall objective of this proposal is to test version 3.0 of the Arthritis smartphone app in a 12-month interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) design which will allow us to observe possible differences in visit frequency between the pre-and post-intervention periods as well as between the concurrent control group and those who receive the app. Our central hypothesis is that introduction of the app will reduce visit numbers per month in the group receiving the app, compared with a concurrent control group.

Recruitment Criteria

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Healthy volunteers are participants who do not have a disease or condition, or related conditions or symptoms

No
Study Type

An interventional clinical study is where participants are assigned to receive one or more interventions (or no intervention) so that researchers can evaluate the effects of the interventions on biomedical or health-related outcomes.


An observational clinical study is where participants identified as belonging to study groups are assessed for biomedical or health outcomes.


Searching Both is inclusive of interventional and observational studies.

Interventional
Eligible Ages 18 Years and Over
Gender All
More Inclusion & Exclusion Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

  • - Be diagnosed with PsA by a board-certified rheumatologist and been seen at least twice in the prior year.
  • - Own a smartphone with either an Android or iPhone operating system.
  • - Be at least 18 years old.
  • - Be English-speaking.
  • - Using guselkumab, infliximab, golimumab or ustekinumab.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • - Patients who do not plan on receiving follow-up care at the Brigham and Women's Arthritis Center will be excluded.

Trial Details

Trial ID:

This trial id was obtained from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, providing information on publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants with locations in all 50 States and in 196 countries.

NCT06004700
Phase

Phase 1: Studies that emphasize safety and how the drug is metabolized and excreted in humans.

Phase 2: Studies that gather preliminary data on effectiveness (whether the drug works in people who have a certain disease or condition) and additional safety data.

Phase 3: Studies that gather more information about safety and effectiveness by studying different populations and different dosages and by using the drug in combination with other drugs.

Phase 4: Studies occurring after FDA has approved a drug for marketing, efficacy, or optimal use.

N/A
Lead Sponsor

The sponsor is the organization or person who oversees the clinical study and is responsible for analyzing the study data.

Brigham and Women's Hospital
Principal Investigator

The person who is responsible for the scientific and technical direction of the entire clinical study.

N/A
Principal Investigator Affiliation N/A
Agency Class

Category of organization(s) involved as sponsor (and collaborator) supporting the trial.

Other, Industry
Overall Status Not yet recruiting
Countries
Conditions

The disease, disorder, syndrome, illness, or injury that is being studied.

Arthritis, Psoriatic Arthritis
Additional Details

Aim 1: To integrate an app for PsA into the EHR. In current work, user-centered design helped develop an EHR integrated PRO-based app for RA. The roll out of the app has been successful and the investigators now want to expand to focus on integration of a similar app for PsA. The app will use similar PROs, adding in a patient global VAS, as well as a brief psoriasis symptom checklist. The PROMIS Function Short Form, PROMIS Fatigue Short Form, PROMIS Pain Short Form, and the PsAID-12 will be assessed. As well, the Q&A function will be modified to focus on PsA, allowing one to monitor symptom changes for patients using various PsA treatments, focusing on guselkumab, infliximab, golimumab, and ustekinumab. Aim 1 is required for the app testing in Aim 2. Aim 2: To conduct a single arm interrupted time series of the EHR-integrated PRO app for PsA to assess whether it improves the timeliness of care. After integrating the app into the EHR, the investigators will recruit 100 patients who use one of the following agents: guselkumab, infliximab, golimumab, or ustekinumab. The goal will be to determine whether the app improves visit timeliness. Timeliness will be defined as an increase in the percent of visits with therapeutic changes over a 9-month trial period. A secondary outcome will assess PROs and visit satisfaction. The app allows patients to remotely transmit PRO data to their care team. Patients with very active disease between visits may consider a visit earlier than scheduled. The investigators hypothesize that during the intervention period with app use, patients will experience improved timeliness of PsA care when compared with the 9 months prior to the app use, while maintaining patient-reported clinical outcomes. Data collection will occur via three methods. First, RA/PsA patients will provide answers to the survey questions through the app on their smartphones or tablets and the ePRO data can be viewed in an administrative dashboard. Second, the app will push an in-basket message to rheumatologists letting them know 1 week before a patient visit that there are ePRO data in Epic to be viewed. If symptoms reach a threshold suggesting poor disease control, then prior to 1 week before the visit the app will send an in-basket message to the rheumatologists letting them know to review patient data to consider an earlier visit. On the other hand, if the ePRO data suggests stable symptoms, the app will push an in-basket message to the rheumatologist 1 week before the next patient visit suggesting that the rheumatologist could consider delaying the visit. The rheumatologist can respond as they see fit or not at all. The last data collection will occur at the end of study when a satisfaction survey will be completed through REDcap electronic consent. Analysis: The investigators anticipate near complete data, based on our prior studies. However, the investigators will impute missing values using standard imputation methods. Baseline characteristics of enrolled patients will be examined, assessing how well the recruited patients reflect a typical PsA population. The investigators will then examine the distribution of the visit timeliness (primary outcome) across the two time periods (pre and post app). Monthly percentage of visits that qualify as timely will be estimated across the study population. This allows us to assess the slopes during the two time periods. The investigators hypothesize improved timeliness of visits in the 9 months after starting to use the app compared with the pre-app 9 months. Thus, the primary analysis is a comparison of slopes. With respect to the secondary outcomes, the investigators will calculate the change from baseline to 9 months for each of the PROs. The distribution of PROs is typically normal. The investigators will compare baseline to ending values for each PRO using an ANCOVA. with an indicator term for rheumatologist. The investigators hypothesize that during this 9-month study the change in PROs will be within the minimally clinically important difference (i.e., no change).

Arms & Interventions

Arms

Experimental: Mobile Application

This arm of the study will contain half the study population after randomization. The participants in this arm will receive the EHR integrated app and follow a 12-month interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) design. n = 200

No Intervention: Controls

This arm of the study will contain half the study population after randomization. The participants in this arm will be from the same rheumatologists as the experimental participants and will be used as concurrent controls by accessing their data on visits from the EHR during the same time period. n = 200

Interventions

Other: - Mobile Application

The current app contains a disease activity questionnaire, a mood scale, a sleep scale, a pain scale, and a functional status scale. The app triggers a brief set of questions each day and allows patients to answer them within 24 hours.

Contact Information

This trial has no sites locations listed at this time. If you are interested in learning more, you can contact the trial's primary contact:

Jacklyn Stratton

jstratton1@bwh.harvard.edu

617-525-8784

For additional contact information, you can also visit the trial on clinicaltrials.gov.

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