Improving Surgical Communication for Patients in Wisconsin
Trial statusRecruiting
Trial phaseNot applicable
Trial typeInterventional
Biological sexAll
Age18+
SponsorUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison
About this trial
The purpose of this study is to evaluate a new training program to support communication between surgeons and their patients. The goal of the training program is to help patients get the information they need to make treatment decisions that are right for them.
Participants will complete surveys, attend a focus group, or receive training on Better Conversations, depending on the type of participant.
Eligibility criteria
This trial accepts healthy volunteersQualifiers
Surgeons from University of Wisconsin - Madison Department of Surgery who have an outpatient surgical clinic and treat adult patients at UW Health
Age 18 or older
Present to an enrolled surgeon's clinic with a surgical problem
Decision making ability
Disqualifiers
Solely treat minors (under age 18)
Lacking decision making capacity
Unable to speak English
Unable to speak English
Trial design
Design model
Parallel
Treatments tested in this trial
Training on communication framework
BehavioralSurgeons will receive training on the Better Conversations framework
Focus Group
Other interventionParticipants will attend a focus group to discuss the survey instruments used in this study which will help with future study design
Surveys
Other interventionParticipants will complete surveys regarding the surgeon's communication skills
Treatment groups
580 Participants
are divided into 3 treatment groupsGroup A: Surgical candidateExperimental treatment 1 intervention
Group B: Stakeholder Focus GroupExperimental treatment 1 intervention
Group C: SurgeonsExperimental treatment 1 intervention
Trial outcomes
Primary outcomes
1
Effect of automated training program
Specialists will train 10 surgeons, audio recording 150 surgical consultations with surgical candidates. 100 audio recordings will be used as a training set to develop an automated assessment and feedback program. 50 recordings will be used to measure fidelity to the intervention with a summative assessment. 10 additional surgeons will be trained using the automated training and researchers will audio record 150 more surgical consultations with surgical candidates. Automated feedback will be provided for 100 of the consultations and researchers will measure fidelity to the automated intervention with a summative assessment of 50 consultations. The effect of the automated training program will be tested by comparing summative assessments of surgeon performance between the two differently-trained groups. Summative assessments to identify strengths and weaknesses of the automated training program will be used to revise the training iteratively for future study.
Time frame
Up to 4 years2
Compare effectiveness of specialist-delivered training versus automated training on participant-reported measures of surgeon communication
Researchers will compare surgical candidate participant survey results between surgeons who received specialist-delivered training versus those who received automated training.
Time frame
Up to 4 yearsOther outcomes
1
To identify survey measures that have a strong baseline variance, the number of participants who evaluate communication skills of the surgeon in the top 10 percentile of scoring
Data from the "Feeling Heard and Understood", "Preparation for Decision Making Scale", and the "Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Surgical Care Survey" instruments will be collected from patient participants, scored, and compared for their ceiling effects. Survey scores will be transformed from 1-100 with higher scores indicating better surgeon communication. The number of participants with scores in the top 10 percentile (90-100) will be reported for each survey, surveys with higher numbers of participants in the top 10th percentile have less baseline variance.
Time frame
Up to 4 yearsSponsors and contacts
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Source ClinicalTrials.gov