Trial reportJournal of the American Geriatrics Society2018
Telephone Follow-Up for Older Adults Discharged to Home from the Emergency Department: A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial.
Trial report in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT05807724 (Geriatric Emergency Department Fall Injury Prevention Project), which is not on this map. Cited by 39 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Geriatric Emergency Department Fall Injury Prevention Project
Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 82 citations in OpenAlex.
- Community care navigation intervention for people who are at risk of unplanned hospital presentations.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2025Pooled it
- A systematic review of outcomes reported in studies to optimise the medication use of patients at hospital discharge.BMC health services research · 2025Pooled it
- Discharge instruction comprehension by older adults in the emergency department: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Transitional Care Interventions From Hospital to Community to Reduce Health Care Use and Improve Patient Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.JAMA network open · 2023Pooled it
- Interventions for improving medication-taking ability and adherence in older adults prescribed multiple medications.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2020Pooled it
- Emergency Department Interventions for Older Adults: A Systematic Review.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2019Pooled it
- Frequencies and reasons for unplanned emergency department return visits by older adults: a cohort study.BMC geriatrics · 2023Trial
- Telephone follow-up to reduce unplanned hospital returns for older emergency department patients: A randomized trial.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2021Trial
- Systematic geriatric assessment for older patients with frailty in the emergency department: a randomised controlled trial.BMC geriatrics · 2021Trial
- Facilitators of and barriers to reducing thirty-day readmissions and improving patient-reported outcomes after surgical aortic valve replacement: a process evaluation of the AVRre trial.BMC health services research · 2020Trial
- Improving the ED-to-Home Transition: The Community Paramedic-Delivered Care Transitions Intervention-Preliminary Findings.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2018Trial
- Adapting a complex health intervention guided by the core functions and forms model: a methodology and case example of participatory adaptation.Frontiers in health services · 2026Article
- Comparison of Three Coordination Methods to Increase Outpatient Follow Up Among Older Adults Discharged From the Emergency Department: A Pilot Study.Journal of patient-centered research and reviews · 2026Article
- Article
- The effectiveness of interventions on clinical and patient-reported outcomes in hospital-to-home transitions of older adults: a systematic review.European journal of ageing · 2025Review
- Telehealth Emergency Department Transition-of-care Program: A Value-based Innovation.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Medication-focused telehealth interventions to reduce the hospital readmission rate: a systematic review.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2025Review
- Access to the internet and mobile applications in a mixed population emergency department: A repeated cross-sectional survey.PEC innovation · 2024Article
- Nurse-led medication management as a critical component of transitional care for preventing drug-related problems.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2024Review
- Implementation of a novel computer assisted telephone follow-up model for older patients after emergency department discharge in an Asian population.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
BACKGROUND/
objectivesTelephone calls after discharge from the emergency department (ED) are increasingly used to reduce 30-day rates of return or readmission, but their effectiveness is not established. The objective was to determine whether a scripted telephone intervention by registered nurses from a hospital-based call center would decrease 30-day rates of return to the ED or hospital or of death.
designRandomized, controlled trial from 2013 to 2016.
settingLarge, academic medical center in the southeast United States.
participantsIndividuals aged 65 and older discharged from the ED were enrolled and randomized into intervention and control groups (N = 2,000).
interventionIntervention included a telephone call from a nurse using a scripted questionnaire to identify obstacles to elements of successful care transitions: medication acquisition, postdischarge instructions, and obtaining physician follow-up. Control subjects received a satisfaction survey only. MEASUREMENTS: Primary outcome was return to the ED, hospitalization, or death within 30 days of discharge from the ED.
resultsRate of return to the ED or hospital or death within 30 days was 15.5% (95% confidence interval (CI) = 13.2-17.8%) in the intervention group and 15.2% (95% CI = 12.9-17.5%) in the control group (P = .86). Death was uncommon (intervention group, 0; control group, 5 (0.51%), 95% CI = 0.06-0.96%); 12.2% of intervention subjects (95% CI = 10.1-14.3%) and 12.5% of control subjects (95% CI = 10.4-14.6%) returned to the ED, and 9% of intervention subjects (95% CI = 7.2-10.8%) and 7.4% of control subjects (95% CI = 5.8-9.0%) were hospitalized within 30 days.
conclusionA scripted telephone call from a trained nurse to an older adult after discharge from the ED did not reduce ED or hospital return rates or death within 30 days. Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT01893931z.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.