Piloting a Multi-component Technology-based Care Intervention to Address Patient Symptoms in Home Hospice

Developing and Piloting a Multi-component Technology-based Care Intervention to Address Patient Symptoms and Caregiver Burden in Home Hospice

With the growth of hospice, older adults have the opportunity to receive home-based care aimed at reducing suffering and focusing on quality of life at the end of life. While use of technology and educational videos has yet to be fully developed, structured, and evaluated in home hospice care, it has shown promise to improve care in other settings. Therefore, this study aims to develop and evaluate a multi-component technology-based care intervention, i.e., Improving Home hospice Management of End of life issues through technology (I-HoME).

The study intervention focuses on assessing and addressing patient symptoms in the home hospice setting through weekly telehealth visits (for up to 6 weeks) and educational videos that are geared for the patient's informal caregiver. The aim of this phase of the project is two fold. One is that the study team will conduct a single armed (N=6 dyads) pilot study with a focus on optimizing data collection protocols and the intervention. After this step, a randomized pilot study evaluating the feasibility and potential efficacy of I-HoME (N=50 dyads) compared to usual care (N=50 dyads) will be conducted.

Phase I of the study to assess feasibility of the intervention was registered on ClinicalTrials.gov as NCT04074304.

Inclusion Criteria:

Home hospice caregivers must be:

• English speaking
• 18 years of age or older
• not blind
• having a family member receiving home hospice care

Home hospice patients must be:

• English speaking
• 65 years of age or older
• not blind
• enrolled in home hospice care.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients with a terminal diagnosis of dementia or patients who have cognitive impairment and unable to sign a written informed consent will be excluded.