Linking Emergency Department Patients to Assistance Programs Study

Completed · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Social Determinants of Health

In brief

The objective of this randomized controlled trial is to test the effect of screening patients in Penn Medicine Emergency Departments for eligibility of public benefits programs and using text messages post-discharge to connect patients to benefits enrollment specialists at Benefits Data Trust (BDT). Eligible patients will be randomly selected to receive text messages for two weeks after Emergency Department discharge with the phone number to speak with a benefits enrollment specialist at BDT. The number of calls to the BDT phone line and the number of submitted applications to public benefits programs will be compared between patients receiving a summary flyer with the phone number for BDT and the text message intervention to connect with BDT in comparison to an active control group who receives only a summary flyer with the phone number for BDT.

Key facts

Study ID

NCT05654220

Run by

University of Pennsylvania

People needed

161

Starts

2023-07-19

Expected to finish

2024-06-30

Last updated by the study team

2024-07-31

Who can join

Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: accepted.

You may qualify if…

• Patients will be included in the study based on the following criteria:
• Adults at least 18 years of age
• Patients must legally reside in Philadelphia
• Patients receiving care from Penn Medicine Emergency Departments at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Centerwho are deemed unlikely to require inpatient hospitalization or observation at the time of enrollment
• Patients must have one of the following insurance plans: Medicaid and/or Medicare (managed and traditional).
• Patient must be able to read/write in English.
• Patients must be eligible for at least 1 of the benefits programs for which BDT can provide either direct application assistance or provide a referral to the social services agency website to submit applications.
• Patients have a stable mobile phone number for the next 3 weeks.

You may not qualify if…

• Patients will be excluded from participating in the study based on the following criteria:
• Individuals < 18 years
• Patients deemed by ED physicians to be in critical or unstable condition
• Does not speak/read English
• Patient is in severe distress, e.g., respiratory, physical, or emotional distress
• Patient is intoxicated, unconscious, or unable to appropriately respond to questions
• Patients under police custody
• Patients with a positive COVID-19 test
• Patients with private health insurance benefits or without health insurance
• Patients without a stable mobile phone number for the next 21 days

Where it is running

• University of Pennsylvania Health System — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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