Active clinical trials for "Chronic Disease"

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the introduction of a short-term telemonitoring program for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients discharged from the hospital after disease exacerbation produces benefits in terms of a reduction in hospital readmissions and health related quality of life. In addition the trials evaluate the economical and organisational impact of the services and examine their acceptability by patients and health professionals.

Millions of diverse Veterans live with severe and chronic illness for which they will face complex, ongoing decisions. Although the VHA has been at the forefront of patient-centered chronic care, interventions to prepare Veterans for complex decision-making over the course of chronic illness are lacking. This proposal addresses this gap by testing the efficacy of a novel preparation guide designed to prepare Veterans to communicate with their surrogates and to work with clinicians to make complex, ongoing decisions. The multi-media guide teaches communication and preparation skill behaviors (e.g., how to choose a surrogate and ask clinicians questions) in a culturally appropriate, easy-to-use format (targeted to a 5th grade reading level). This study aims to provide an impetus for changing the paradigm of advance care planning policies within the VA by moving beyond documentation of end-of-life wishes to the activation of Veterans to participate in ongoing communication of their values and goals - a process that is essential to fully realize patient-centered care.

Background: Despite evidence of benefit for pharmacist involvement in chronic disease management, the provision of these services in community pharmacy has been suboptimal. The Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARiHS) framework suggests that for knowledge translation to be effective, there must be evidence of benefit, a context conducive to implementation, and facilitation to support uptake. We hypothesize that while the evidence and context components of this framework are satisfied, that uptake into practice has been insufficient because of a lack of facilitation. This protocol describes the rationale and methods of a feasibility study to test a facilitated pharmacy practice intervention based on the PARiHS framework, to assist community pharmacists in increasing the number of formal and documented medication management services completed for patients with diabetes, dyslipidemia, and hypertension. Methods: A cluster-randomized before-after design will compare ten pharmacies from within a single organization, with the unit of randomization being the pharmacy. Pharmacies will be randomized to facilitated intervention based on the PARiHS framework or usual practice. The Alberta Context Tool will be used to establish the context of practice in each pharmacy. Pharmacies randomized to the intervention will receive task-focused facilitation from an external facilitator, with the goal of developing alternative team processes to allow the greater provision of medication management services for patients with diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. The primary outcome will be a process evaluation of the needs of community pharmacies to provide more clinical services, the acceptability and uptake of modifications made, and the willingness of pharmacies to participate. Secondary outcomes will include the change in the number of formal and documented medication management services in the aforementioned chronic conditions provided 6 months before, versus after, the intervention between the two groups, and identification of feasible quantitative outcomes for evaluating the effect of the intervention on patient care outcomes. Results: To date, the study has identified and enrolled the ten pharmacies required and initiated the intervention process. Conclusion: This study will be the first to examine the role of facilitation in pharmacy practice, with the goal of scalable and sustainable practice change.

New payment methods such as Accountable Care Organization (ACO's) and medical homes facilitate are new models for providers to deliver cost effective, quality patient outcomes. Integrated Care Coaching (ICC) is a healthcare delivery model combining telephonic interventions with an intelligent information technology platform that offered validated protocols and patient outcomes tracking. Health Integrated, Inc. has developed a validated program of Integrated Care Coaching (ICC), which was branded as "VitalCare", and implemented with over 7,000 members of the Scott and White Health Plan in Texas, would reduce healthcare costs/achieve a return on investment (ROI), improve clinical outcomes, and be satisfying for participants.

Bronchial asthma is an chronic airway disease with bronchial hypersensitivity due to inflammation and bronchial muscle contraction. It can cause recurrent dyspnea, cough, wheezing and severe life-threatening attack and lower quality of life. In addition, it make large amount of socioeconomic loss as about 3.7 billion US dollars.

Aims: To design a proactive implementation strategy for a chronic-disease-management-programme. To describe effects of the active implementation of a programme for COPD-patients measured on patient-related goals and use of health resources. To describe stakeholders' evaluation of the implementation. Materials and method: An intervention study with 3000 COPD-patients cluster-randomized after a bloc-randomization of their GP-practice. 18 GP-practices in Ringkøbing-Skjern-Municipality are randomized to receive an active implementation or to an "as usual" group. A neighboring municipality acts as "sleeping" control. With data from registers and a questionnaire-survey the effect on COPD-patients self reported-health, evaluation of health system and changes in distribution of health resources is analyzed. How health professionals perceive the implementation and how it influences their conception, interactions and culture is illustrated by interviews with stakeholders. We expect to see improved health related quality of life, enhanced evaluation of the health system and a more appropriate distribution of health resources in the intervention group.

The purpose of this study is to characterize the clinical, physiologic, and molecular profiles of healthy participants, participants with mild, moderate, and severe asthma; and participants with moderate to severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Acute, randomized, placebo controlled, double blind, postprandial crossover study in male subjects. 4 intervention arms consisting of control, orange juice, whole orange, and processed whole orange to determine the effect of the interventions on the primary measure of flow mediated dilatation (FMD) and additional biomarkers of health. The study will also identify and quantify the main micronutrients and phytochemicals in each of the products and will identify and quantify the main micronutrients and phytochemicals and their metabolites in the subjects' plasma and/or urine. A subset of the study population (n=24) will be invited to participate in an additional arm of the main study which is summarised below.

At the moment, most of efforts to prevent non-transmissible chronic diseases at population level have been centered in promoting healthful behaviors like physical activity, consumption of fruits and vegetables, and discouraging from the consumption of tobacco and alcohol in adult population, but the results have been little hopeful. In the last years, manifold studies have indicated the relation between metabolic alterations and of the fetal growth with the development of non-transmissible chronic diseases in adult age. More recently, it has been proposed that maternal factors (endothelial function, oxidative stress and alterations in adipokines) and placental ones (mitochondrial dysfunction) are the precursory mechanisms of fetal metabolic alterations and of the later development of non-transmissible chronic diseases. Also, it has been suggested that possibly supplementation with micronutrients and the physical exercise during the gestation can regulate these maternal and placental factors. For the reasons just mentioned, it is necessary to clarify if these proposed factors are related to fetal metabolic alterations and if the supplementation during the gestation with micronutrients and/or the physical exercise can regulate them, which would be an early and novel alternative to fortify the prevention of non-transmissible chronic diseases in the population. Purpose To evaluate the effect of associated both the maternal and placental metabolic factors to non-transmissible chronic diseases in newborn. To evaluate the effect of the physical exercise and the complementation with micronutrients during the pregnancy either in the endothelial function, the levels of adipokines, the oxidative stress of the mother and the newborn, as in the placental mitochondrial function and the anthropometry of newborn.

Care pathways, a complex intervention to (re)organise, standardize and evaluate care processes, are used worldwide and in different kinds of settings. Although their international use, the impact is unclear. The European Quality of Care Pathways Study is the first international cluster Randomized Controlled Trial on the effect of care pathways for COPD patients. The hypothesis is that teams who work with care pathways for COPD patients deliver care that is more compliant to evidence based key interventions, have better patient outcomes and higher scores on team indicators than teams who do not work with care pathways.