Post-Intensive Care Transitional Care, Rehabilitation, and Family-Support

Post-Intensive Care Transitional Care, Rehabilitation, and Family-Support RCT

The goal of this randomized control trial is to test an intervention designed to improve patient and family outcomes after critical illness compared to usual care. The intervention, called Post-Intensive Care Transitions, Rehabilitation and Family Support (PIC-TRFS) combines four elements: (1) health management; (2) rehabilitation; (3) social support; (4) care coordination. All patients and families enrolled in this study will have spent at least 48 hours in an ICU, be at risk for long-term functional impairment, and be discharged home. Although age of the patients will be restricted to those who are at least 50 years old and caregivers must be adults over 18 and all participants must speak English, the study will enroll all sexes, genders, races, and ethnicities. The main questions the study aims to answer are:

1. Compared to usual care, does PIC-TRFS improve patient quality of life at the end of the 6-month intervention period measured via PROMIS-Preferences (PROPr) score?
2. Compared to usual care, does PIC-TRFS improve patient physical, cognitive, and psychological functioning measured via PROMIS Physical, Cognitive, and Depression Computer Adaptive Test (CAT) at 6 and 12 months after discharge? Does it increase the number of days survivors spend alive at home in the 6 and 12 months after discharge? Does it improve patient and family trauma scores and dyadic quality of life, measured via the Impact of Events Scale-Revised and dyadic PROPr score?

Participants will:

• Complete Run-In assessments of symptoms and function in the hospital;
• Be randomized to intervention or control;
• Complete assessments of their function and quality of life at 0, 3, 6 and 12 months
• Control participants will get a brochure on the Post-Intensive Care syndrome and complete the assessments on the same schedule as those receiving the intervention
• Intervention participants will complete tele-health based check-ins providing health management, social support, and care coordination; and telehealth-based rehabilitation sessions focusing on patient functioning.

Each year in the United States, over 3 million people survive critical illness only to experience long-term physical, cognitive, and psychological functional impairments that contribute to ongoing health problems, high healthcare costs, and early death. Gaps in care delivery contribute to poor outcomes and preventable rehospitalizations for both patients and families. In response to these gaps, the study team used community engagement to design an intervention with 4 elements: (1) rehabilitation; (2) health and symptom management; (3) social support; (4) healthcare coordination. The result is the PIC-TRFS, which stands for Post-Intensive Care Transitional care, Rehabilitation, and Family Support (PIC-TRFS).

PIC-TRFS combines in-person and telehealth support delivered by an interdisciplinary team to nimbly address health, rehabilitation, social, and care coordination needs in collaboration with existing hospital, home health, and primary care providers. The PIC-TRFS team follows participants across transitions from hospital to home in the six months following a critical illness hospitalization. This single center randomized control trial will test whether PIC-TRFS improves outcomes compared to Enhanced Usual Care. Specifically, this research will test whether PIC-TRFS improves survivor quality of life, days alive at home, function, trauma symptoms, and family care partner quality of life. It will also test whether PIC-TRFS reduces healthcare utilization, measured as a combination of days in a healthcare facility, Emergency Department visits, and outpatient visits. At the same time, this research will assess how consistently the intervention is delivered to make sure that differences between groups really reflect the impact of the intervention. Finally, the study will explore whether the intervention may reduce health disparities between people with higher health and social needs. Successful conduct of this trial will test whether PIC-TRFS works, generate insight into how it works, and identify its impact on health equity.

Inclusion Criteria:

In order to be eligible to participate in this study, a patient must meet all of the following criteria:

1. All genders; Age ≥ 50
2. Admission to the hospital from home/independent living
3. Receive treatment in an ICU for ≥ 48 hours
4. At least some risk of ongoing functional impairment, measured as Activity Measures for Post-Acute Care (AMPAC) < 24, Highest Level Mobility (HLM) < 8, Intensive Care Delirium Screening Checklist (ICDSC) > 2, Significant mental health impairment (major depression, generalized anxiety, PTSD, substance use disorder)
5. Provider or e-prognosis that they are reasonably likely to be alive in 12 months (answers no to "Would you be surprised if this person were alive in 12 months?' or eprognosis risk of 1-year mortality <= 35%
6. Willingness to adhere to the PIC-TRFS regimen.
7. Provision of signed and dated informed consent form

In order to be eligible to participate in this study, a family caregiver must meet all of the following criteria:

1. All genders; Age ≥ 18 years old
2. In the survivor's social network
3. Planning to provide at least some in-home support for the survivor after discharge
4. Willingness to adhere to the PIC-TRFS regimen
5. Provision of signed and dated informed consent form

In order to be eligible for randomization, dyads must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Completion of at least the following elements of the Run-In:

   1. Patient: demographics, social needs screening tool, symptom bother scale, brief health literacy screening tool, past medical history, baseline function (Katz, Lawton, and caregiver-reported IQCODE), health priorities & goals, discharge information
   2. Caregiver: demographics, social needs screening tool, caregiver needs screening, brief health literacy screening, family caregiver training

2. Discharge to home/independent living

Exclusion criteria

Survivors will be excluded if any of the following apply:

1. They lack a family caregiver willing to participate;
2. They have a chronic condition for which they are already receiving dedicated transitional care services (e.g., post-cardiac arrest, transplant, TAVR, etc)
3. They have chronic functional dependency without potential to increase participation in meaningful activity
4. They reside outside of Pennsylvania (interventionists are only licensed to practice here)
5. They are unable to participate in English

A family caregiver who meets any of the following criteria will be excluded from participation in this study:

1. They are unable to participate in English