Recruiting

Post-Discharge Education

Sponsor:

Boston Medical Center

Code:

NCT07032818

Conditions

Communication Research

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Additional post discharge phone call

Study Details

Brief summary:

Hospital discharge is a dangerous time for patients: one in five will suffer an adverse event, such as a medication error, and nearly 25% will be readmitted within 30 days. This time is even more dangerous for patients with who face communication barriers, including those with non-English language preference (NELP), low health literacy, and the elderly.

The investigators will pilot a post-discharge educational intervention to reinforce written discharge instructions (known as the After Visit Summary or AVS) using a randomized controlled trial design (2:1 intervention: control). The control group will receive current standard of care discharge education which includes a nurse reviewing their AVS and an automated call in English that allows patients to numerically select types of problems/questions that are then escalated to a nurse who should return their call within a few days. The intervention group will receive the standard of care discharge education with the AVS and an additional post-discharge educational call delivered by a registered nurse or other qualified health professional with the option to have written instructions professionally translated and sent via MyChart message--if available in their preferred language.

Conditions

Communication Research

Study ID

NCT07032818

Start date

Jan 16, 2026

Status verified date

Jan, 2026

Completion date

Mar, 2027

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Mar, 2027

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 18+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Registered language in Epic (written or spoken) is Spanish, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Cape Verdean, or Vietnamese
  • Admitted to medicine team at Boston Medical Center (BMC)
  • Being discharged home (to the community)

Exclusion Criteria:

  • On airborne infections precautions at time of recruitment
  • On C diff precautions at time of recruitment
  • On suicide precautions at time of recruitment
  • Nurse report of participant displaying cognitive impairment, ongoing delirium, or aggression
  • Discharge observed during a prior admission

Study Design

Enrollment

60 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Health Services Research

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

other: Educational intervention

Participants randomized into this arm will receive current hospital discharge education and an additional post-discharge educational call.

no intervention: Standard of care

Participants randomized into this arm will receive current hospital discharge education.

Interventions

Additional post discharge phone call

24-72 hours after hospital discharge, a nurse will call participants to review the written After Visit Summary (AVS) given at discharge, including primary diagnosis, self-care instructions, emergency plan, medication changes, how and why to take medication, and scheduled follow up. These phone calls will take on average 10-15 minutes.

Primary outcome measure

  • Retention success by linguistic group [ Time Frame: 12 months ]
  • Fidelity to the intervention [ Time Frame: 12 months ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Locations

Boston Medical Center

Recruiting

Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02118

Contacts

Kirsten Austad, MD PhD

617-414-2050

More Information

Sponsor

Boston Medical Center

Last update posted

Jan 20, 2026

Last verified

Jan, 2026

Keywords

  • Discharge instructions
  • Non-English language preference
  • Adapting hospital discharge

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Boston Medical Center on 2026-01-20.