Active clinical trials for "Chronic Disease"

The treatment period was 16 weeks, the initial dose, 5 mg, was unforcedly titrated to 10 mg, 20 mg and 40 mg after confirming tolerance at weeks 4, 8 and 12. The primary endpoint for efficacy was the change in the urinary protein/creatinine ratio from baseline to the end of treatment. The secondary endpoint was creatinine clearance (Ccr).

We seek to determine if patient data entry, data entered based alerts, and data review in a secure patient portal may provide a sustainable approach to improve diabetic outcomes in a cost effective manner. We plan to study the extent to which the portal can improve diabetic outcomes and quality of care. We recognize, however, that some patients will be more predisposed to adopting technology and some will be more predisposed to improving their compliance than others. Hence, we will also develop and test interventions that may improve adoption and compliance. The goals of the proposed study are: 1) to assess whether a web portal will improve care outcomes in diabetic patients; 2a) to describe the characteristics of patients whose health behavior improves over the study period; 2b) to describe the characteristics of patients who adopt the web portal-based disease management technology; 3) to develop and test targeted interventions to increase the adoption of the web portal and improve patient health behavior; and 4) to monitor the ongoing costs associated with the web portal and patient healthcare resource utilization, and to monitor the incremental costs of the interventions designed to improve utilization of the technology and patient compliance with their diabetic regimens.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether an extended care treatment model lasting over a year will increase long-term smoking cessation rates compared to the standard 8 week treatment of care.

The primary objective of this study is to determine to what extent a collaborative intervention improves chronic pain-related outcomes in a VA primary care setting. We will also determine to what extent the intervention affects 1) treatment of co-occurring depression, 2) adherence of providers to guidelines for treating chronic pain, and 3) patient and provider satisfaction and attitudes related to chronic pain treatment.

Policy makers and consumers are increasingly concerned about the quality and efficiency of care provided to individuals with severe, chronic illnesses such as schizophrenia. These illnesses are expensive to treat and present significant challenges to organizations that are responsible for providing effective care. Occurring in 1% of the United States population, schizophrenia accounts for 10% of permanently disabled people, and 2.5% of all healthcare expenditures. Clinical practice guidelines have been promulgated. Schizophrenia is treatable and outcomes can be substantially improved with the appropriate use of antipsychotic medication, caregiver education and counseling, vocational rehabilitation, and assertive treatment. However, in the VA and other mental health systems, many patients with schizophrenia receive substandard care. Methods are needed that improve the quality of usual care for this disorder while being feasible to implement at typical clinics. To date, most efforts to improve care for schizophrenia have focused on educating clinicians or changing the financing of care, and have had limited success. We believe a more fundamental approach should be tried. While there are many potential strategies, experience in chronic medical illness and mental health support the efficacy of specific approaches. Collaborative care models are one such approach. They are a blueprint for reorganizing practice, and involve changes in division of labor and responsibility, adoption of new care protocols, and increased attention to patients' needs. Although collaborative care models have been successful in other chronic medical conditions, they have not yet been studied in the treatment of schizophrenia. We have developed a collaborative care model for schizophrenia that builds on work in other disorders, and includes service delivery approaches that are known to be effective in schizophrenia. The model focuses on improving treatment through assertive care management, caregiver education and support, and standardized patient assessment with feedback of information to psychiatrists. This project, "EQUIP" (Enhancing Quality Utilization In Psychosis) is implementing collaborative care and evaluating its effectiveness in schizophrenia.

Parent caregivers of children with chronic conditions who require life-saving technology such as mechanical ventilation or feeding tubes must maintain a high level of vigilance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They usually provide a majority of their children's care and are often overwhelmed by the caregiving demands thus neglect health promotion behaviors that result in a deterioration of their own mental and physical health. The goal of this study is to test a cognitive-behavioral resourcefulness intervention that will improve these caregivers' mental and physical health and health promotion behaviors while they continue to provide vital care for these vulnerable children.

This is a Phase II, Randomized, Blinded, Sham Procedure-Controlled, Parallel-Group Trial to Evaluate the Efficacy, Safety and Tolerability of LYR-210 in Adult Subjects with Chronic Sinusitis.

The objective of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of PROPEL Contour placement following an in-office frontal sinus balloon dilation (SBD) in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS)

There is no doubt that chronic migraine is a large public health problem, which is both disabling and costly. Many patients and headache doctors see Botulinum toxin (Botox) treatment as a big stride forward, but it is a problem that the effect has been shown in only one study, with a low therapeutic gain. For this reason, before this costly treatment is expanded to potentially several thousand patients in Norway, it would be highly desirable that 1) there is additional good scientific evidence for use of Botox , 2) a more effective treatment procedure is developed, 3) the potential for unblinding is reduced, and 4) the dose, number of injection sites and cost can be halved, and 5) the adverse effects are minimized. These may be the results of this pilot project where injections are given along the sutures, which can open up for a later randomized, blinded and controlled study.

The relative effectiveness of incentives based on process (e.g. medication adherence) vs. outcome (improvements in blood pressure) is unknown, leading to the key research question: Which approach is more effective? The incentive structure for this initiative is based on best practices in the use of process and outcome measures to address this fundamental question. A series of incentive designs will be conducted to examine the relative effectiveness of equivalent value incentives based on process (e.g. attending smoking cessation counseling sessions), outcomes (e.g. quitting smoking), or a combination of process and outcomes incentives (e.g. attending smoking cessation counseling sessions and quitting smoking). This will also provide an overarching framework for assessing the relative importance of process versus outcome incentives in different contexts and for different populations.