Background: The emergency department (ED) offers an important opportunity to identify patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) and initiate treatment. However, post-ED follow-up is challenging, and novel approaches to enhance care transitions are urgently needed. Outcomes following ED visits have traditionally focused on overdose, treatment engagement, and mortality with an absence of patient reported outcomes (PROs), for example patient ability to schedule follow-up OUD treatment appointments or pick up a prescription medication, that may better inform evaluation of treatment pathways and near-term outcomes after acute events. In the context of increasing novel secure mobile health (mHealth) platforms, we explored the feasibility and acceptability of electronically collecting PROs from ED patients with non-medical opioid use to enhance care in the ED and transitions of care.
Methods: ED patients with non-medical opioid use or opioid overdose who endorsed willingness and ability to complete electronic surveys after discharge were enrolled from a tertiary, urban academic ED. Participants were enrolled in an mHealth platform, shared electronic health records with researchers, and completed electronic surveys of PROs at baseline, three- and thirty-days post discharge from the hospital, including questions about ability to schedule a follow-up appointment, pick up a prescription medication and overdose risk behaviors. Primary outcomes were measures of feasibility and acceptability of electronic PRO collection among ED patients with non-medical opioid use.
Results: Among 1,808 patients assessed for eligibility between June-December 2019, 101 of 130 (78%) eligible adult patients consented to participate. Ninety-six (95%) of 101 patients completed registration in the mHealth platform, and 77/96 (80%) were successful in sharing their electronic health data. Completion rates for the baseline, three-day and thirty-day surveys were 97% (93/96), 49% (47/96) and 42% (40/96). Implementation challenges included short engagement window during ED visit, limited access to smartphones/computers, insufficient battery life of participant phone to access email and password, forgotten emails and passwords, multi-step verification processes for account set-up, and complaints about hospital care, most of which were effectively addressed by study personnel.
Conclusions: ED patients with OUD were willing to share electronic health information and PROs, although implementation challenges were common, and more than half of participants were lost-to-follow-up after hospital discharge at 30 days. Efforts to streamline communication and remove barriers to engagement are needed to improve the collection of PROs and pathways of care in ED patients with OUD. Clinical Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03985163). Date of Registration: June 10, 2019, Retrospectively registered (First enrollment June 8, 2019). https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/record/NCT03985163.
Keywords: Emergency department; Mobile health; Opioid use disorder; Patient reported outcome measures; mHealth.
© 2021. The Author(s).