Effects of an integrated care intervention on risk factors of COPD readmission. Randomized controlled trial of an internet-based versus face-to-face dyspnea self-management program for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: pilot study. Telemedicine experience for chronic care in COPD. Home telehealth improves clinical outcomes at lower cost for home healthcare. Telehomecare: quality, perception, satisfaction. Integrated care prevents hospitalisations for exacerbations in COPD patients. Reduction of hospital utilization in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a disease-specific self-management intervention. Outcomes of the Kaiser Permanente Tele-Home Health Research Project. Home telecare for COPD/CHF patients: outcomes and perceptions. Home monitoring of theophylline levels: a novel therapeutic approach. Effects of nurse-initiated telephone follow-up on self-efficacy among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Tele-assistance in chronic respiratory failure patients: a randomised clinical trial.
An integrated care intervention including education, coordination among levels of care, and improved accessibility, reduced hospital readmissions in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) after 1 year. This study analyses the effectiveness of this intervention in terms of clinical and functional status, quality of life, lifestyle, and self-management, under the hypothesis that changes in these factors could explain the observed reduction in readmissions. A total of 113 exacerbated COPD patients (14% female, mean (SD) age 73(8) years, FEV(1) 1.2(0.5) l) were recruited after hospital discharge in Barcelona, Spain, and randomly assigned (1:2) to integrated care (IC) (n=44) or usual care (UC) (n=69). The intervention consisted of an individually tailored care plan at discharge shared with the primary care team and access to a specialized case manager nurse through a web-based call centre. After 1 year of intervention, subjects in the intervention group improved body mass index by 1.34 kg/m(2). Additionally, they scored better in self-management items: COPD knowledge 81% vs. 44%, exacerbation identification 85% vs. 22%, exacerbation early treatment 90% vs. 66%, inhaler adherence 71 vs. 37%, and inhaler correctness 86 vs. 24%. There were no differences in the evolution of dyspnea, lung function, quality of life scores, lifestyle factors, or medical treatment.
                This IC trial improved disease knowledge, and treatment adherence, after 1 year of intervention, suggesting that these factors may play a role in the prevention of severe COPD exacerbations triggering hospital admissions. People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) continue to experience dyspnea with activities of daily living (ADL) despite optimal medical management. Information and communication technologies may facilitate collaborative symptom management and could potentially increase the reach of such interventions to those who are unable to attend face-to-face pulmonary rehabilitation or self-management programs.
                The purpose of this randomized study was to test the efficacy of two 6-month dyspnea self-management programs, Internet-based (eDSMP) and face-to-face (fDSMP), on dyspnea with ADL in people living with COPD.
                We randomly assigned 50 participants with moderate to severe COPD who were current Internet users to either the eDSMP (n = 26) or fDSMP (n = 24) group. The content of the two programs was similar, focusing on education, skills training, and ongoing support for dyspnea self-management, including independent exercise. The only difference was the mode (Internet/personal digital assistant [PDA] or face-to-face) in which the education sessions, reinforcement contacts, and peer interactions took place. Participants returned to one of two academic clinical sites for evaluation at 3 and 6 months. The primary outcome of dyspnea with ADL was measured with the Chronic Respiratory Questionnaire. Secondary outcomes of exercise behavior, exercise performance, COPD exacerbations, and mediators, such as self-efficacy and social support, were also measured. A satisfaction survey was administered and a semistructured exit interview was conducted at the final visit.
                The study was stopped early due to multiple technical challenges with the eDSMP, but follow-up was completed on all enrolled participants. Data were available for 39 participants who completed the study (female: 44%; age: 69.5 +/- 8.5 years; percent predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 s: 49.6 +/- 17.0%). The fDSMP and eDSMP showed similar clinically meaningful changes in dyspnea with ADL from baseline to 3 months (fDSMP: + 3.3 points; eDSMP: + 3.5 points) and sustained these improvements at 6 months (fDSMP: + 4.0 points; eDSMP: + 2.5 points; time effects P < .001; group by time P = .51). Self-reported endurance exercise time (P = .001), physical functioning (P = .04), and self-efficacy for managing dyspnea (P = .02) also showed positive improvements over time in both groups with no significant differences with respect to program modality. Participants who completed the study reported favorable satisfaction with the programs.
                Although there were numerous technical challenges with the eDSMP, both dyspnea self-management programs were effective in reducing dyspnea with ADL in the short term. Our findings will need to be confirmed in a larger randomized trial with more mature Web and personal digital assistant tools, use of a control group, and longer follow-up. Information and telecommunication technologies are called to play a major role in the changes that healthcare systems have to face to cope with chronic disease. This paper reports a telemedicine experience for the home care of chronic patients suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and an integrated system designed to carry out this experience. To determine the impact on health, the chronic care telemedicine system was used during one year (2002) with 157 COPD patients in a clinical experiment; endpoints were readmissions and mortality. Patients in the intervention group were followed up at their homes and could contact the care team at any time through the call center. The care team shared a unique electronic chronic patient record (ECPR) accessible through the web-based patient management module or the home visit units. Results suggest that integrated home telemedicine services can support health professionals caring for patients with chronic disease, and improve their health. We have found that simple telemedicine services (ubiquitous access to ECPR, ECPR shared by care team, accessibility to case manager, problem reporting integrated in ECPR) can increase the number of patients that were not readmitted (51% intervention, 33% control), are acceptable to professionals, and involve low installation and exploitation costs. Further research is needed to determine the role of telemonitoring and televisit services for this kind of patients. Patient outcomes and cost were compared when home healthcare was delivered by telemedicine or by traditional means for patients receiving skilled nursing care at home. A randomized controlled trial was established using three groups. The first group, control group C, received traditional skilled nursing care at home. The second group, video intervention group V, received traditional skilled nursing care at home and virtual visits using videoconferencing technology. The third group, monitoring intervention group M, received traditional skilled nursing care at home, virtual visits using videoconferencing technology, and physiologic monitoring for their underlying chronic condition. Discharge to a higher level of care (hospital, nursing home) within 6 months of study participation was 42% for C subjects, 21% for V subjects, and 15% for M subjects. There was no difference in mortality between the groups. Morbidity, as evaluated by changes in the knowledge, behavior and status scales of the Omaha Assessment Tool, showed no differences between groups except for increased scores for activities of daily living at study discharge in the V and M groups. The average visit costs were $48.27 for face-to-face home visits, $22.11 for average virtual visits (video group), and $32.06 and $38.62 for average monitoring group visits for congestive heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease subjects, respectively. This study has demonstrated that virtual visits between a skilled home healthcare nurse and chronically ill patients at home can improve patient outcome at lower cost than traditional skilled face-to-face home healthcare visits. The aim of this study was to demonstrate that telehomecare linking homebound patients with their home health-care nurses over the plain old telephone system (POTS) provides high-quality, clinically useful, and patient satisfactory interactions. Congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and chronic wound-care patients receiving skilled home nursing care were randomized into control (standard home health care, HHC) and two intervention (standard care plus video conferencing/Internet access; the above plus physiological monitoring) groups. Virtual visits (VVs), consisting of two-way audio and video interactions between the central site HHC nurse and the subject at home, were compared for technical quality and clinical usefulness by the HHC nurses who performed the VVs. Subject perception of telehomecare and satisfaction with their HHC were assessed over the course of the project. There were a total of 567 virtual and 1,057 actual visits conducted for the 53 subjects completing the study. The technical quality of VVs were rated at 94.7%. They were considered to be as useful as actual visits in 90.7% of cases. Subject telehomecare perception increased after experiencing the process. All subjects were satisfied with their HHC; satisfaction increased with an increasing level of telehomecare intervention. Subjects receiving physiological monitoring and video conferencing/Internet access in addition to standard care were most satisfied with their care. VVs can be conducted over POTS. Patients can use telehomecare with moderate levels of training. These programs can provide timely and quality home health nursing care with VVs augmenting traditional home visits. Hospital admissions due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations have a major impact on the disease evolution and costs. The current authors postulated that a simple and well-standardised, low-intensity integrated care intervention can be effective to prevent such hospitalisations. Therefore, 155 exacerbated COPD patients (17% females) were recruited after hospital discharge from centres in Barcelona (Spain) and Leuven (Belgium). They were randomly assigned to either integrated care (IC; n = 65; age mean+/-sd 70+/-9 yrs; forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV(1)) 1.1+/-0.5 L, 43% predicted) or usual care (UC; n = 90; age 72+/-9 yrs; FEV(1) 1.1+/-0.05 L, 41% pred). The IC intervention consisted of an individually tailored care plan upon discharge shared with the primary care team, as well as accessibility to a specialised nurse case manager through a web-based call centre. After 12 months' follow-up, IC showed a lower hospitalisation rate (1.5+/-2.6 versus 2.1+/-3.1) and a higher percentage of patients without re-admissions (49 versus 31%) than UC without differences in mortality (19 versus 16%, respectively). In conclusion, this trial demonstrates that a standardised integrated care intervention, based on shared care arrangements among different levels of the system with support of information technologies, effectively prevents hospitalisations for exacerbations in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease patients. Self-management interventions improve various outcomes for many chronic diseases. The definite place of self-management in the care of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has not been established. We evaluated the effect of a continuum of self-management, specific to COPD, on the use of hospital services and health status among patients with moderate to severe disease.
                A multicenter, randomized clinical trial was carried out in 7 hospitals from February 1998 to July 1999. All patients had advanced COPD with at least 1 hospitalization for exacerbation in the previous year. Patients were assigned to a self-management program or to usual care. The intervention consisted of a comprehensive patient education program administered through weekly visits by trained health professionals over a 2-month period with monthly telephone follow-up. Over 12 months, data were collected regarding the primary outcome and number of hospitalizations; secondary outcomes included emergency visits and patient health status.
                Hospital admissions for exacerbation of COPD were reduced by 39.8% in the intervention group compared with the usual care group (P =.01), and admissions for other health problems were reduced by 57.1% (P =.01). Emergency department visits were reduced by 41.0% (P =.02) and unscheduled physician visits by 58.9% (P =.003). Greater improvements in the impact subscale and total quality-of-life scores were observed in the intervention group at 4 months, although some of the benefits were maintained only for the impact score at 12 months.
                A continuum of self-management for COPD patients provided by a trained health professional can significantly reduce the utilization of health care services and improve health status. This approach of care can be implemented within normal practice. Level of acuity and number of referrals for home health care have been escalating exponentially. As referrals continue to increase, health care organizations are encouraged to find more effective methods for providing high-quality patient care with cost savings.
                To evaluate the use of remote video technology in the home health care setting as well as the quality, use, patient satisfaction, and cost savings from this technology.
                Quasi-experimental study conducted from May 1996 to October 1997.
                Home health department in the Sacramento, Calif, facility of a large health maintenance organization.
                Newly referred patients diagnosed as having congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cerebral vascular accident, cancer, diabetes, anxiety, or need for wound care were eligible for random assignment to intervention (n = 102) or control (n = 110) groups.
                The control and intervention groups received routine home health care (home visits and telephone contact). The intervention group also had access to a remote video system that allowed nurses and patients to interact in real time. The video system included peripheral equipment for assessing cardiopulmonary status.
                Three quality indicators (medication compliance, knowledge of disease, and ability for self-care); extent of use of services; degree of patient satisfaction as reported on a 3-part scale; and direct and indirect costs of using the remote video technology.
                No differences in the quality indicators, patient satisfaction, or use were seen. Although the average direct cost for home health services was $1830 in the intervention group and $1167 in the control group, the total mean costs of care, excluding home health care costs, were $1948 in the intervention group and $2674 in the control group.
                Remote video technology in the home health care setting was shown to be effective, well received by patients, capable of maintaining quality of care, and to have the potential for cost savings. Patients seemed pleased with the equipment and the ability to access a home health care provider 24 hours a day. Remote technology has the potential to effect cost savings when used to substitute some in-person visits and can also improve access to home health care staff for patients and caregivers. This technology can thus be an asset for patients and providers. We evaluated the use of home telehealth for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and/or congestive heart failure (CHF). Patients diagnosed with COPD and/or CHF who were prescribed home health-care services were randomly assigned to an experimental group where they received home health care through a combination of traditional face-to-face and telemedicine visits (n = 83), and a control group where only conventional home care was employed (n = 78). Data were collected via the Short Form 36 (SF-36), Outcome and Assessment Information Set (OASIS) and patient charts. In the experimental group, patient perceptions of the home telecare services were collected via telephone interviews. Overall, the addition of telehealth to COPD/CHF patient care was not a significant predictor of health and wellbeing, either positively or negatively. Although those receiving telehealth had worse ratings on the SF-36 general health subscale after the intervention, this measure was only significant when controlling for a number of key variables in the model. In regard to patient perceptions of home telecare, patients were satisfied with the technology and the way that care was delivered via this modality. This pilot clinical investigation was conducted to compare a home therapeutic drug-monitoring (TDM) method for theophylline blood levels and a traditional TDM method with respect to various patient outcome factors. Outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) or asthma who were receiving long-term theophylline therapy were randomized to one of two groups: home TDM or traditional TDM (controls). Patients in the former group monitored their serum theophylline levels at home over 6 months. Patients in both groups completed survey instruments, including questionnaires, visual analog scales, and other psychosocial measures, at designated times throughout the study period. Pulmonary function tests and dyspnea index scores were evaluated at each clinic visit. Results indicated a significantly lower (p less than 0.05) number of changes in concomitant drug therapy in the home TDM group compared with controls. Other indicators that showed a trend toward more favorable outcomes in the home TDM group included symptomology, percentage of levels within the therapeutic range, patient attitudes regarding participation in health care management, and pulmonary function test results. Home monitoring prevented unnecessary clinic visits in several instances when theophylline dosage adjustments were based on telephone reports from patients. The utility of a home TDM method for theophylline has not been reported previously despite potential for broad applications. Findings from this preliminary study may support the use and feasibility of state-of-the-art methodologies in carefully selected subpopulations outside the confines of the hospital or clinic setting. This paper reports a study to determine whether a nurse-initiated telephone follow-up programme could increase patients' self-efficacy in managing dyspnoea and decrease health care service use.
                Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a worldwide health problem and has been labelled a burdensome disease. Because of the fear of activity-induced dyspnoea, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease lack the confidence to perform daily activities. Studies of cardiac and diabetic patients have shown that telephone follow-up care is an effective approach to increasing self-efficacy. However, little such research has been done with patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
                This was a randomized controlled study. A total of 60 participants (30 telephone follow-up, 30 control) with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were recruited from an acute care hospital in Hong Kong. The Chinese Self-Efficacy Scale was used to assess self-efficacy. Measures of health care use were numbers of visits to an accident and emergency department, hospitalizations, and unscheduled visits by physicians.
                The self-efficacy scores (U = 272.5, P = 0.009) of patients who were followed up by telephone improved significantly compared with those of patients in the control group. Multiple regression analyses showed that telephone follow-up (Beta = 0.33, CI: 0.19-0.48, P = 0.001), the pulmonary rehabilitation programme (Beta = 0.44, CI: 0.16-0.72, P = 0.003), smoking (Beta = 0.34, CI: 0.09-0.57, P = 0.009), and health care use (Beta = -0.27, CI: -0.47-(-0.07), P = 0.008) were significant factors in predicting patient self-efficacy.
                Nurse-initiated telephone follow-up care was effective in increasing self-efficacy in managing dyspnoea. The study needs to be replicated in other setting to strengthen its external validity. Chronic respiratory patients requiring oxygen or home mechanical ventilation experience frequent exacerbations and hospitalisations with related costs. Strict monitoring and care have been recommended. The aim of the present study was to primarily evaluate reduction in hospitalisations and, secondly, exacerbations, general practitioner (GP) calls and related cost-effectiveness of tele-assistance (TA) for these patients. A total of 240 patients (101 with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)) were randomised to two groups: an intervention group entered a 1-yr TA programme while controls received traditional care. No anthropometric and clinical differences were found between groups both in baseline and in mortality (18% for TA, 23% for controls). Compared with controls, the TA group experienced significantly fewer hospitalisations (-36%), urgent GP calls (-65%) and acute exacerbations (-71%). Only COPD patients, as a separate group, had fewer hospitalisations, emergency room admissions, urgent GP calls or exacerbations. Each patient referred to staff a mean+/-sd 36+/-25 times. After deduction of TA costs, the average overall cost for each patient was 33% less than that for usual care. In chronic respiratory failure patients on oxygen or home mechanical ventilation, a nurse-centred tele-assistance prevents hospitalisations while it is cost-effective. The chronic obstructive pulmonary disease group seems to have a greater advantage from tele-assistance.