Initial Specialist Telephone Consultation With New Patients in Secondary Care

• Sponsor: Imperial College London (Other)
• Overall Status: Completed
• CT.gov ID: NCT00988000
• Collaborator: The Dunhill Medical Trust (Other)
• Enrollment: 157
• Location: 1
• Arms: 3
• Actual Duration (Months): 10
• Patients Per Site Per Month: 15.7

Study Details

Study Description

Brief Summary

Consultations with patients by hospital consultants are organised today in a manner which is barely dissimilar from that offered 30 or 40 years ago. Whilst some attempts to improve this process, such as Choose and Book, shorter waiting times and patients' receiving a copy of the correspondence sent to their general practitioner (GP) have improved the situation, there has been little radical change and little thought given to the patient experience.

The investigators wish to investigate whether patients' experience of attending respiratory outpatient clinics can be improved by a pre-clinic telephone call with a specialist thereby reducing the number of attendances at the hospital for appointments and investigations and improving overall patient satisfaction.

Condition or Disease	Intervention/Treatment	Phase
Respiratory Diseases	Other: telephone consultation; Other: No intervention	N/A

Detailed Description

This study will investigate whether taking a new patient's history over the telephone permits better selection and arrangement of investigations prior to or synchronous with the first face to face consultation, with the potential to reduce the number of visits the patient has to make to the hospital.

Patients will be offered an initial telephone consultation by post and may opt-in or out of the study. Those having a telephone consultation would have this booked for a specific time and date and the patient would be sent an appropriate information leaflet regarding this. After the telephone consultation patients receive a summary of the consultation and details of any investigations and appointments booked by the research nurse. Patients who did not respond to the initial invitation letter within seven days or who declined to participate would be sent a routine appointment. All patients would asked to complete the MISS-21 questionnaire.

Study Design

• Study Type: Interventional
• Actual Enrollment: 157 participants
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)
• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Official Title: Telephone Consultations for New Patients Being Referred to a Specialist Respiratory Outpatient Clinic
• Actual Study Start Date: Jun 1, 2009
• Actual Primary Completion Date: Apr 1, 2010
• Actual Study Completion Date: Apr 1, 2010

Arms and Interventions

Arm	Intervention/Treatment
Other: Agree to the alternative study invitation Agree with alternative of telephone consultation (instead of face to face) offered as an initial consultation to new referrals	Other: telephone consultation; alternative to face to face consultation for new referrals
Other: Decline the alternative study invitation Decline, no respond to the alternative of telephone consultation	Other: No intervention; no alternative to face to face consultation
Other: Comparator Choose and book	Other: No intervention; no alternative to face to face consultation

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

1. Patient Satisfaction of the Alternative Consultation [First clinic appointment (Month 0) and Follow-up appointment (6 months]

   Patient Satisfaction assessed by MISS scale, Medical interview satisfaction score. The score 0-7, 0 means dissatisfaction, higher scores indicate higher satisfaction.

Secondary Outcome Measures

1. Number of Required Investigations [0-6 months]

   reduction in number of required investigations

Eligibility Criteria

Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 Years and Older
• Sexes Eligible for Study: All
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Inclusion Criteria:

• All new adult general respiratory referrals from primary care

Exclusion Criteria:

• Follow-up patients

Contacts and Locations

Locations

	Site	City	State	Country	Postal Code
1	Imperial College at Charing Cross campus	London		United Kingdom	W6 8RF

Sponsors and Collaborators

• Imperial College London
• The Dunhill Medical Trust

Investigators

• Principal Investigator: Professor MR Partridge, MD FRCP, Imperial College London

Study Documents (Full-Text)

None provided.

More Information

Publications

None provided.

• Responsible Party: Imperial College London
• ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00988000
• Other Study ID Numbers: NHLICX07Q060519
• First Posted: Oct 1, 2009
• Last Update Posted: Oct 25, 2019
• Last Verified: Oct 1, 2019

• Individual Participant Data (IPD) Sharing Statement: No
• Plan to Share IPD: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Drug Product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Device Product: No
• Keywords provided by Imperial College London: outpatients
• Additional relevant MeSH terms: Respiration Disorders; Respiratory Tract Diseases

Study Results

Participant Flow

Pre-assignment Detail	Patients' who attending respiratory outpatient clinics

Arm/Group Title	Agree to Alternative Study Invitation	Declined the Alternative Study Invitation	Comparator
Arm/Group Description	Patients Respond to study invitation - agree to alternative consultation	Patients respond to study invitation - declined/ non-responders for the invitation	Patients - choose and book
Period Title: Overall Study
STARTED	49	51	57
COMPLETED	49	51	57
NOT COMPLETED	0	0	0

Baseline Characteristics

Arm/Group Title	Respond to Study Invitation - Agree to Alternative Consultatio	Respond to Study Invitation - Declined/ Non-responders	Comparator - Choose and Book	Total
Arm/Group Description	participants agreed to have an alternative consultation i.e. telephone consultation for their first hospital appointment	Participants declined or did not respond to the invitation to participate in the study	participants in this group booked their appointment through the choose and book system	Total of all reporting groups
Overall Participants	49	51	57	157
Age (years) [Mean (Standard Deviation) ]
Mean (Standard Deviation) [years]	62 (13.7)	57.4 (16.7)	50.9 (17.0)	56.7 (15.8)
Sex: Female, Male (Count of Participants)
Female	27 55.1%	28 54.9%	28 49.1%	83 52.9%
Male	22 44.9%	23 45.1%	29 50.9%	74 47.1%
Race and Ethnicity Not Collected (Count of Participants)
Count of Participants [Participants]	0 0%
Region of Enrollment (participants) [Number]
United Kingdom	49 100%	51 100%	57 100%	157 100%

Outcome Measures

1. Primary Outcome

Title	Patient Satisfaction of the Alternative Consultation
Description	Patient Satisfaction assessed by MISS scale, Medical interview satisfaction score. The score 0-7, 0 means dissatisfaction, higher scores indicate higher satisfaction.
Time Frame	First clinic appointment (Month 0) and Follow-up appointment (6 months

Outcome Measure Data

Analysis Population Description

Incomplete data and those that had an alternative consultation did not need a follow up appointment

Arm/Group Title	Agree to the Alternative Consultation	Declined the Alternative Study Invitation	Comparator
Arm/Group Description	Patients respond to study invitation and agree	Declined/non-responders for the invitation	Patients choose and book
Measure Participants	44	29	41
first clinic appointment	5.85 (0.73)	5.67 (0.68)	5.26 (0.70)
follow-up appointment	5.47 (0.53)	5.36 (0.98)

2. Secondary Outcome

Title	Number of Required Investigations
Description	reduction in number of required investigations
Time Frame	0-6 months

Outcome Measure Data

Analysis Population Description

[Not Specified]

Arm/Group Title	Agree to the Alternative Study Invitation	Declined the Alternative Study Invitation	Comparator
Arm/Group Description	Patients respond to study invitation and agree	Declined/ non-responders to the alternative study invitation	Patients choose and book
Measure Participants	49	51	57
Planned investigations	147	117	128
Completed investigations	145	105	116

Adverse Events

Time Frame	10 month
Arm/Group Title	Agree to Alternative Study Invitation		Declined the Alternative Study Invitation		Comparator
Arm/Group Description	Patients agree to alternative study invitation		Patients who declined/ non-responders to alternative study invitation		Patients - choose and book
All Cause Mortality
	Agree to Alternative Study Invitation		Declined the Alternative Study Invitation		Comparator
	Affected / at Risk (%)	# Events	Affected / at Risk (%)	# Events	Affected / at Risk (%)	# Events
Total	0/49 (0%)		0/51 (0%)		0/57 (0%)
Serious Adverse Events
	Agree to Alternative Study Invitation		Declined the Alternative Study Invitation		Comparator
	Affected / at Risk (%)	# Events	Affected / at Risk (%)	# Events	Affected / at Risk (%)	# Events
Total	0/49 (0%)		0/51 (0%)		0/57 (0%)
Other (Not Including Serious) Adverse Events
	Agree to Alternative Study Invitation		Declined the Alternative Study Invitation		Comparator
	Affected / at Risk (%)	# Events	Affected / at Risk (%)	# Events	Affected / at Risk (%)	# Events
Total	0/49 (0%)		0/51 (0%)		0/57 (0%)

Limitations/Caveats

[Not Specified]

More Information

Certain Agreements

All Principal Investigators ARE employed by the organization sponsoring the study.

There is NOT an agreement between Principal Investigators and the Sponsor (or its agents) that restricts the PI's rights to discuss or publish trial results after the trial is completed.