Don't Throw Your Heart Away: Clinician Study 3
Study Details
Study Description
Brief Summary
Publicly available outcome assessments for transplant programs do not make salient that some programs tend to reject many of the hearts they are offered, whereas other programs accept a broader range of donor offers. The investigators use empirical studies to test whether transplant center performance data (i.e. transplant and waitlist outcome statistics) that reflect center donor acceptance rates influence laypersons to evaluate centers with high organ decline rates less favorably than centers with low organ decline rates. 125 heart transplant clinical personnel will be recruited from International Heart and Lung Society (ISHLT) and the Pediatric Heart Transplant Society (PHTS) and randomized to one of two different information presentation conditions. Participants will be asked to view the table of transplant outcomes corresponding to the condition they were randomized to. Each participant is asked to choose the hospital that they would consider to be "higher-performing" between two hospitals: one hospital with a non-selective, "accepting" strategy (takes all donor heart offers), and one hospital with a more selective, "cherrypicking" strategy (tends to reject donor offers that are less than "excellent" quality).
| Condition or Disease | Intervention/Treatment | Phase |
|---|---|---|
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N/A |
Detailed Description
Publicly available outcome assessments for transplant programs do not make salient that some programs tend to reject many of the hearts they are offered, whereas other programs accept a broader range of donor offers. The investigators use empirical studies to test whether transplant center performance data (i.e. transplant and waitlist outcome statistics) that reflect center donor acceptance rates influence laypersons to evaluate centers with high organ decline rates less favorably than centers with low organ decline rates. 125 heart transplant clinical personnel will be recruited from International Heart and Lung Society (ISHLT) and the Pediatric Heart Transplant Society (PHTS) and randomized to one of two different information presentation conditions. Participants will be asked to view the table of transplant outcomes corresponding to the condition they were randomized to. Each participant is asked to choose the hospital that they would consider to be "higher-performing" between two hospitals: one hospital with a non-selective, "accepting" strategy (takes all donor heart offers), and one hospital with a more selective, "cherrypicking" strategy (tends to reject donor offers that are less than "excellent" quality).
Condition 1 ("baseline" condition): view only combined transplant survival (e.g. transplant survival rate not stratified by number and quality of donor hearts accepted at each center)
Condition 2: view only stratified transplant survival (e.g. transplant survival rate stratified into patients who received excellent donor organs and patients who received less than optimal donor organs)
Participants will then be asked to view the table of transplant outcomes corresponding to the condition they were randomized to. Each participant is asked to choose the hospital that they would consider to be "higher-performing" between two hospitals: one hospital with a non-selective, "accepting" strategy (takes all donor heart offers), and one hospital with a more selective, "cherry-picking" strategy (tends to reject donor offers that are less than "excellent" quality). In order to identify the decision process that underlies this choice pattern, the investigators will examine a putative mediator. Specifically, participants will be asked to rate the extent to which they considered patients' chances of getting an excellent heart, avoiding a less-than-optimal heart, and getting any type of heart when making their choice between the two hospitals.
Study Design
Arms and Interventions
| Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
|---|---|
| No Intervention: Condition 1: Combined only Participants randomized to baseline (control) arm Condition 1 will view only combined transplant survival outcome information (e.g. transplant survival rate not stratified by number and quality of donor hearts accepted at each center) when making a choice between the two hospitals. |
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| Experimental: Combined 2: Stratified only Participants randomized to Condition 2 will view only stratified transplant survival outcome information when making a choice between the two hospitals. |
Other: Stratified Transplant Survival
The transplant survival rate in the table of outcome statistics is stratified into two groups: (i) patients who received excellent donor organs and (ii) patients who received less than optimal donor organs. Stratified transplant survival is computed from survival rates of transplant patients who received each quality category of organ. excellent transplant survival = [number of patients surviving after transplant with excellent organ]/[number of patients for whom excellent organ was accepted for transplant] marginal transplant survival = [number of patients surviving after transplant with marginal organ]/[number of patients for whom marginal organ was accepted for transplant]
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Outcome Measures
Primary Outcome Measures
- Hospital Choice [1 day]
The outcome variable will be a measure of binary choice between two hospitals: one with a selective donor-heart acceptance strategy and one with a non-selective donor heart acceptance strategy. Participants will respond to the question "Which Hospital is a better choice for patients? Please click on one of the two tables below to indicate which hospital is the better choice." Participants will choose been two outcome tables featuring the selective and non-selective hospital (counterbalanced, such that each of the two choices is equally likely to be presented at top of the choice scenario in each condition). The number of participants that choose each hospital will be the measured outcome variable used in analyses.
Secondary Outcome Measures
- Mediator of Hospital Choice [1 day]
On the next page of the survey, participants will respond to three mediator questions: "There are many reasons why one transplant hospital might outperform another. Which reasons were most important in your decision? Please move the slider to indicate how much you considered each of the reasons below (0=reason was not important, 100=reason was extremely important)." Participants will then move a slider bar (0-100) to indicate the importance of the following three items: Patients were more likely to receive an excellent donor heart at the hospital I picked. Patients were less likely to receive a marginal donor heart at the hospital I picked. Patients were more likely to receive any kind of heart at the hospital I picked. The third item (more likely to receive any kind of heart) will be the only variable that is included in the planned mediation analysis.
Eligibility Criteria
Criteria
Inclusion Criteria:
Participants will be asked to participate if they confirm the following inclusion criteria in the consent form.
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18 years of age or older
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must read and understand the information in the consent form
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must want to participate in the research and continue with the survey
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must be clinical transplant personnel
Exclusion Criteria:
- participants who do not meet primary criterion of being clinical transplant personnel.
Contacts and Locations
Locations
| Site | City | State | Country | Postal Code | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Carnegie Mellon University | Pittsburgh | Pennsylvania | United States | 15213 |
Sponsors and Collaborators
- Carnegie Mellon University
Investigators
- Principal Investigator: Alison E Butler, BS, Carnegie Mellon University
Study Documents (Full-Text)
None provided.More Information
Publications
None provided.- 1 F30 HL152526-01-C