Cirrhosis Care Alberta CCAB Improving Care and Reducing Hospital Use for Adults with Liver Cirrhosis Using a Standardized Order Set

What this Trial Is About

Liver cirrhosis causes serious health problems and early death for many patients with digestive diseases. There are gaps in care that lead to high hospital readmission rates and lower quality care. The Cirrhosis Care Alberta CCAB program is a three-year quality improvement effort designed to enhance care quality, reduce hospital use, and meet the needs of both patients and healthcare providers across Alberta by addressing multiple factors that contribute to hospital stays and readmissions. The CCAB intervention includes a comprehensive care bundle with admission and discharge order sets focusing on managing cirrhosis complications, frailty, malnutrition, alcohol use disorder, and community transition. It also offers patient and caregiver education to improve self-management and supports provider education for nurses and physicians on cirrhosis care and alcohol use treatments. Additionally, community care pathways target common complications like hepatic encephalopathy and ascites to provide timely support and reduce emergency visits. Participants will be involved throughout the three-year study with assessments of hospital length of stay and readmission rates, emergency and outpatient visits, survival, disease severity, and how well the intervention is implemented. These outcomes will be measured at baseline and over one to two years to evaluate the programs impact. The study uses non-randomized groups including usual care and intervention with or without electronic medical record integration.

Cirrhosis Care Alberta (CCAB): A Pragmatic Type II Hybrid Effectiveness Implementation Trial