A Clinical Communication Tool (Loop) for Team-Based Care in Pediatric and Adult Care Settings: Hybrid Mixed Methods Implementation Study

Abstract

Background: Communication within the circle of care is central to coordinated, safe, and effective care; yet patients, caregivers, and health care providers often experience poor communication and fragmented care. Through a sequential program of research, the Loop Research Collaborative developed a web-based, asynchronous clinical communication system for team-based care. Loop assembles the circle of care centered on a patient, in private networking spaces called Patient Loops. The patient, their caregiver, or both are part of the Patient Loop. The communication is threaded, it can be filtered and sorted in multiple ways, it is securely stored, and can be exported for upload to a medical record.

Objective: The objective of this study was to implement and evaluate Loop. The study reporting adheres to the Standards for Reporting Implementation Research.

Methods: The study was a hybrid type II mixed methods design to simultaneously evaluate Loop's clinical and implementation effectiveness, and implementation barriers and facilitators in 6 health care sites. Data included monthly user check-in interviews and bimonthly surveys to capture patient or caregiver experience of continuity of care, in-depth interviews to explore barriers and facilitators based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), and Loop usage extracted directly from the Loop system.

Results: We recruited 25 initiating health care providers across 6 sites who then identified patients or caregivers for recruitment. Of 147 patient or caregiver participants who were assessed and met screening criteria, 57 consented and 52 were enrolled on Loop, creating 52 Patient Loops. Across all Patient Loops, 96 additional health care providers consented to join the Loop teams. Loop usage was followed for up to 8 months. The median number of messages exchanged per team was 1 (range 0-28). The monthly check-in and CFIR interviews showed that although participants acknowledged that Loop could potentially fill a gap, existing modes of communication, workflows, incentives, and the lack of integration with the hospital electronic medical records and patient portals were barriers to its adoption. While participants acknowledged Loop's potential value for engaging the patient and caregiver, and for improving communication within the patient's circle of care, Loop's relative advantage was not realized during the study and there was insufficient tension for change. Missing data limited the analysis of continuity of care.

Conclusions: Fundamental structural and implementation challenges persist toward realizing Loop's potential as a shared system of asynchronous communication. Barriers include health information system integration; system, organizational, and individual tension for change; and a fee structure for health care provider compensation for asynchronous communication.

Keywords: Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research; Implementation Outcome Taxonomy; Quality Improvement Framework; collaborative care; complexity; coordination of care; implementation science; internet communication technology; interprofessional team; patient engagement; social networking technology; theory of behavior; user-centered design.