Clinical Research Directory

Effect of Empathy-Based Program on Nursing Assistants in Long-term Care Facilities

This randomized controlled trial aims to explore the impact of an Empathy-Based Program on the level of empathy among nursing assistants in a long-term care facility. A total of 100 participants will be divided into two groups: a virtual reality (VR) with debriefing group, and a control group (C) receiving routine care. The intervention involves a weekly 5-minute VR session featuring immersive experiences of residents' lives within the facility, followed by a 25-minute debriefing discussion in small groups of 5\~6 participants. This will continue for three weeks. The study will evaluate the effectiveness of the empathy program in enhancing nursing assistants' empathy levels, with data collection occurring at three time points: baseline, post-intervention, and one-month follow-up.

Pragmatic Trial to Increase Quality of Care in State Veterans Homes

Background: State Veterans Home nursing homes (SVHs) care for 51% of all Veterans receiving VA-funded nursing home care. SVHs cost VA $1.2 billion yearly in per diem payments. This critical system provides care to a population of over 20,000 vulnerable Veterans annually but has been little researched and is in urgent need of attention. In some SVHs, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in large numbers of preventable illnesses, hospitalizations, and even deaths. Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and the Secretary have all called for greater VA involvement in this system that lacks a national quality improvement infrastructure and lags behind VA on many quality measures, including falls. This study addresses SVHs' need to reduce high fall rates-55% of residents experience at least one fall per quarter-by implementing an effective, evidence-based program known as LOCK. In LOCK, staff (1) "Learn from bright spots" (focus on evidence of positive change); (2) "Observe" (collect data through systematic observation); (3) "Collaborate in huddles" (conduct frontline staff huddles); and (4) "Keep it bite-size" (limit activities to 5-15 minutes). The program avoids reliance on existing quality improvement infrastructures, can be easily integrated into frontline staff routines, and has demonstrated success in improving clinical outcomes, including reductions in falls. Significance: This study provides the following. (1) Timely, evidence-based research support to improve care for SVHs' vulnerable population of aging Veterans. (2) Explicit integration of frontline staff expertise, ensuring interventions are practicable and successful. (3) Direct alignment with high-reliability principles-such as sensitivity to operations and deference to expertise-helping extend VA's high-reliability focus to SVHs. Innovation and Impact: This study contributes the following. (1) Advances the science of how to intervene in settings that do not have a strong, centralized quality improvement focus through rigorous investigation of how and why an intervention works in SVHs. (2) Investigates sustainment of the investigators' intervention-the extent to which it becomes part of usual care-for up to 12 months after completion of each step of the investigators' wedge-based design. (3) Provides timely, systematic investigation of a new area for VA research, gathering information on VA researcher-SVH partnerships to support future collaborations. Specific Aims: Aim 1: Investigate the effectiveness of the LOCK program at improving the investigators' primary outcome of any resident fall. This study will also investigate other resident clinical outcomes (mobility, medication changes, restraint and alarm use) and work-process outcomes for staff (job satisfaction, work engagement, burnout). This study will use both primary and secondary data collection. Aim 2: Evaluate the LOCK program's implementation. This study will use the replicating effective programs framework and multi-modal implementation facilitation strategies to implement the program. This study will use mixed methods to evaluate the program's reach, adoption, and implementation. Aim 3: Assess the extent of program sustainment. Mixed methods will enable examination of intervention sustainment at 3, 6, and 12 months post intervention and sustainment variability among sites. Methodology: This is a 4-year hybrid (Type 2) effectiveness-implementation study. It uses a pragmatic stepped-wedge randomized trial design and employs relational coordination theory and the RE-AIM framework to guide implementation and evaluation. Next Steps: This study (1) directly improves care for aging Veterans, (2) advances understanding of how to intervene in settings lacking quality improvement infrastructure, and (3) contributes knowledge about intervention sustainment. This study also addresses VA's Research Lifecycle stages of (a) scale up and spread and (b) sustainment. Findings may help improve care in other settings (e.g., inpatient mental health and domiciliary programs).

Evaluating a National Person-Centered Training Program to Strengthen the Dementia Care Workforce

This project will compare two training models of an evidence-based online dementia care training program for direct care staff in assisted living to a waitlist control: 1) essentiALZ training and 2) essentiALZ training + Project ECHO. It will examine the extent to which each model is implemented and achieves its intended outcomes to improve staff knowledge and attitudes, change care practices, and improve the wellbeing of staff, residents, and residents' family members. Results will inform next steps in dementia care training for the assisted living (AL) and broader long-term care workforce. To examine these outcomes, data will be collected from AL staff and families over the course of 6 months. Staff will complete questionnaires and participate in interviews (as applicable) at baseline, post-training, 3-months, and 6-months. Families will participate in interviews at baseline, 3-months, and 6-months.

Virta Health Registry

The purpose of this registry is to establish a research data repository, comprised of data generated in the course of providing clinical services to patients treated by Virta Health, to conduct secondary research on clinical interventions and chronic diseases.

Holistic Self-Empowerment Care Intervention for Optimized Independent Living and Quality of Life: A Study Protocol

This protocol describes a pilot study evaluating the effectiveness of the Self-Empowerment Care Model in promoting independence and quality of life among frail older adults in Hong Kong. Rooted in Nordic re-enablement principles and refined in Japan, the intervention adopts a holistic approach that focuses on hydration, exercise, diet, and defecation care. This 12-week intervention will be tested across three care settings-residential, day care, and home care. The study uses a quasi-experimental design involving 60 participants, aiming to compare outcomes of the intervention group with a control group receiving standard care. The study also assesses its impact on caregivers' burden and job satisfaction.

Evaluation of the Use of a Novel Oral Health Screening Instrument by Caregivers in Nursing Homes

BACKGROUND: Oral health of nursing home residents is often poor. Oral health is related to general health, quality of life and well-being. Health care providers in nursing homes can be seen as important intermediaries to improve oral health as they are responsible for the residents' daily care and as they could regularly check resident's oral health. The goal of this interventional study is to evaluate the use of a new oral health screening tool for older adults in nursing homes (OHS-interRAI) in an everyday context. This tool is included in the Belgian version of the International Resident Assessment Instrument for long-term care facilities and will be used by healthcare providers without a dental background. The evaluation will be done at different levels using mixed methods. The main questions this study aims to answer at level of the residents are: * What is the effect of regular oral health assessment on oral health of the residents? * How do residents perceive oral health and experience the regular oral health assessments? At level of the health care providers the main questions are: * How do they experience the use of the OHS-interRAI for oral health assessments? * To what extent are the assessments by health care providers comparable to assessments performed by oral health professionals? METHODS: This research will compare the outcomes of nursing homes using the OHS-interRAI with outcomes of nursing homes using the oral health screening tool which is currently used in Belgian nursing homes. Nursing homes will be assigned randomly to the different groups. Both healthcare providers and residents assign for participation. Healthcare providers will follow a training on how to perform the screening with the OHS-interRAI and to monitor residents' oral health. Residents agree to regular oral health assessments by their healthcare providers every six months over a 2-years period.