Emergency Care Action Plans for Infants with Medical Complexity
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Emergency Care Action Plan.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Children with Medical Complexity, Child, Only, Infant Morbidity, Infant Conditions. Basic parameters: up to 6 months · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- United States
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
Unsure about the terms? Read our patient guide →
Official title
Optimization and Implementation Trial of a User-Centered Emergency Care Action Plan for Infants with Medical Complexity
Overview
An Emergency Care Action Plan (ECAP) is a tool intended to be helpful to providers when treating a child with complex medical needs during an emergency. Once created, ECAPs are added to the Electronic Health Record (EHR), shared with the child's caregiver(s), and kept up by all of those involved in a child's care. The goal of this study is to measure important health outcomes (ex. inpatient days, emergency department visits) in terms of the use of the ECAP for infants discharged from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). This study will also measure other real-time potential challenges related to the use of the ECAP including, but not limited to, if it is being used, if providers and caregivers want to use it, and if they keep using it over a long period of time.
Detailed description
National expert recommendations and human-centered design principles were used to optimize an Emergency Care Action Plan (ECAP) for infants with medical complexity. This study will implement and monitor the effectiveness and feasibility of the optimized Emergency Care Action Plan for infants with medical complexity. The primary objective is to determine the effectiveness of a user-centered Emergency Care Action Plan for infants with medical complexity on emergency health care utilization and cost metrics. The secondary objective is to monitor and evaluate barriers and facilitators to the current and widespread implementation of a user-centered Emergency Care Action Plan for infants with medical complexity.
Research participants will be assigned by chance to receive an ECAP or standard care. Caregivers (parent/legal guardian) of infant participants will be asked to complete periodic surveys during a one-year feasibility trial period. If assigned, caregivers will be asked to help with the process of creating an ECAP for their child.
Interventions
- Other Emergency Care Action Plan
An Emergency Care Action Plan (ECAP) is a brief, pre-populated summary of suggested emergency management for children with medical complexity, embedded in a patient's electronic health record for access by providers in an emergency. Patients/families will have digital access to the ECAP and be given a paper copy. The patient's care team and caregiver(s) (parent/legal guardian) will collaborate to create an individualized ECAP containing the following content: caregiver contact information, patie
Primary outcome measures
- Inpatient hospitalization [Time frame: Day 0 (NICU discharge) to Month 12]
Secondary outcome measures (6)
- Avoidance of ED visits [Time frame: Day 0 (NICU discharge) to Month 12]
- Number of ED visits [Time frame: Day 0 (NICU discharge) to Month 12]
- ED length of stay [Time frame: Day 0 (NICU discharge) to Month 12]
- Interfacility transfers [Time frame: Day 0 (NICU discharge) to Month 12]
- Caregiver stress [Time frame: Day 0 (NICU discharge) to Month 12, assessed at quarterly intervals (Month 3, 6, 9, 12)]
- Caregiver self-efficacy [Time frame: Day 0 (NICU discharge) to Month 12, assessed at quarterly intervals (Month 3, 6, 9, 12)]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Age 0 to 6 months
- Admitted to the University of Vermont Medical Center Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
- Meets or is expected to meet Children with Medical Complexity status as determined by the treating NICU clinician and defined as "children with multiple significant chronic health problems including multiple organ systems, which result in functional limitations, high health care needs or utilization, and often require need for, or use of, medical technology."
Exclusion criteria
- Does not have a caregiver participant who agrees to their participation in the study to complete follow-up surveys
- Does not intend to use University of Vermont Health Network and affiliated sites for care during the one-year trial period
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: No
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Open label
- Primary purpose
- Other
Study locations
United States · 1 center
- University of Vermont Medical Center — Burlington
Publications
- Pulcini CD, Rubin DM. Flipping the Script on Emergency Care for Children With Medical Complexity. Pediatrics. 2019 Sep;144(3):e20183905. doi: 10.1542/peds.2018-3905. No abstract available. PMID 31439622
- Pulcini CD, Dubuque A, Lamberson M, Macy ML, Mistry RD, Pruitt CM, Schnadower D, Zorc JJ, Stevens MW. Pediatric Emergency Medicine Physicians' Perspectives on Emergency Care of Children With Medical Complexity: A Multi-institution Mixed-Methods Assessment. Pediatr Emerg Care. 2022 Aug 1;38(8):e1423-e1427. doi: 10.1097/PEC.0000000000002712. Epub 2022 Apr 18. PMID 35436769
- Pulcini CD, Belardo Z, Ketterer T, Zorc JJ, Mollen CJ. Improving Emergency Care for Children With Medical Complexity: Parent and Physicians' Perspectives. Acad Pediatr. 2021 Apr;21(3):513-520. doi: 10.1016/j.acap.2020.09.006. Epub 2020 Sep 15. PMID 32947009
- Pulcini CD, Coller RJ, Houtrow AJ, Belardo Z, Zorc JJ. Preventing Emergency Department Visits for Children With Medical Complexity Through Ambulatory Care: A Systematic Review. Acad Pediatr. 2021 May-Jun;21(4):605-616. doi: 10.1016/j.acap.2021.01.006. Epub 2021 Jan 21. PMID 33486099
- Pulcini CD, Coller RJ, Macy ML, Alpern E, Harris D, Rodean J, Hall M, Chung PJ, Berry JG. Low-Resource Emergency Department Visits for Children With Complex Chronic Conditions. Pediatr Emerg Care. 2022 Feb 1;38(2):e856-e862. doi: 10.1097/PEC.0000000000002437. PMID 34009894
- Palaza A, Callas P, Dayan PS, Kuo DZ, Riney L, Spencer SP, Stapleton R, Stevens M, Studts CR, Pulcini CD. Randomised hybrid type 1 pilot trial evaluating preliminary effectiveness and implementation of an emergency care action plan (ECAP) for infants with medical complexity within a rural health network: a study protocol. BMJ Open. 2025 Oct 6;15(10):e106842. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2025-106842. PMID 41057174
Identifiers
NCT: NCT06444282 · 1K23HD109469-01 · K23HD109469-01