GrandAides; a Workforce Innovation to Address Post Acute Care

Randomized controlled trial with two groups looking at post hospital care for patients who were admitted with congestive heart failure. The control group includes standard of care provided to the patients after discharge including a hospital employed community health worker. The intervention group receives a specially trained GrandAide following the GrandAide model for post acute care. Difference in ER visits and readmissions was measured.

GrandAides program is a credible messenger community health worker based program that assumes a community health worker from the community who has specialized education around a certain chronic condition will be able to support patients in the outpatient setting more effectively than current standard of care. In this study a GrandAide visited a patient discharged from the hospital in their home for 4 weeks providing education, checking vital signs, and assisting with communication with the cardiologist. The study measured the difference in hospital admissions and ER visits between the group that was assigned a GrandAid and the group that took part in standard care. The groups were assigned randomly. The difference was calculated using one and two tailed t-test results.

Patients randomized to this arm of the trial received access to a specially trained GrandAide to work as a credible messenger community health worker. This GrandAide received 6 weeks of education around congestive heart failure to support the patient in the outpatient setting.

This arm served as the control and included standard of care outpatient support for patients with heart failure.This support was done telephonically.

Inclusion Criteria: Clinical diagnosis of heart failure Lives in 6 zipcode catchment area of Temple University Hospital Is followed by Temple Cardiology Exclusion Criteria: End Stage Renal Disease Housed in a Skilled Nursing Facility Substance Use Disorder Unable to give consent Doesn't speak English Under age 18