Clinical trialNCT06596577Enrolling, by, invitationPhase 3Interventional

Nudging Effective and Equitable Delivery of Specialty Palliative Care

SponsorUniversity of PennsylvaniaEnrollment18,000PalliativeSerious Illness

View the registry record on ClinicalTrials.gov

Summary

The lay summary the sponsor registered on ClinicalTrials.gov.

This stepped-wedge, cluster randomized pragmatic trial among 9 MedStar hospitals for patients with serious illness and unmet palliative care (PC) needs will test two interventions embedded within the electronic health record (EHR): (1) a PC needs triggered alert to opt-in to PC consults nudging hospital clinicians to order specialty PC consults for eligible inpatients, and (2) a palliative care needs triggered alert with an opt-out to palliative care consults. The trial will compare the interventions effects to usual care, focusing on completed PC consults during the hospital encounter and other secondary outcomes. The trial also includes an embedded mixed methods study to explore factors influencing the effectiveness and equity of intervention implementation.

clinicaltrials.gov ↗

Investigators

The overall officials registered on this study. Names that resolve to a FindMyKOL profile link to it; the rest are shown as registered.

Katherine Courtright, MD, MS
University of Pennsylvania
Principal Investigator
clinicaltrials.gov ↗
Michael Harhay, PhD, MPH
University of Pennsylvania
Principal Investigator
clinicaltrials.gov ↗

A profile link is shown only when the registered name resolves to a person record with a confident, namesake-checked match; ambiguous names stay unlinked.

Sites

9 registered facilities, with the per-site recruitment status where the registry publishes one. ClinicalTrials.gov does not publish per-site enrollment counts.

United States

Medstar Georgetown University Hospital
Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States
Medstar Washington Health Center
Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States
Medstar Franklin Square Medical Center
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Medstar Good Samaritan Hospital
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Medstar Harbor Hospital
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Medstar Union Memorial Hospital
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
Medstar Southern Maryland Hospital Center
Clinton, Maryland, United States
Medstar St. Mary'S Hospital
Leonardtown, Maryland, United States
Medstar Montgomery Medical Center
Olney, Maryland, United States

Site investigator names are published by ClinicalTrials.gov only while a study recruits, so completed studies list sites without them.

Drugs studied

No drug or biological interventions are in our data for this study. It may test a procedure, device or behavioral intervention, or the intervention list isn't in our current snapshot. See the registry record ↗. Why? →

Registration & key dates

Registry attributes as recorded on the ClinicalTrials.gov study record.

Start: 6 Aug 2025
Primary completion: 1 Mar 2028
Completion: 28 Feb 2029
Last update posted: 30 Oct 2026
Registered enrollment: 18,000
Registry id: NCT06596577

clinicaltrials.gov ↗

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov, via the CTTI AACT database, data as of 11 Nov 2026. Registry facts are shown as registered by the study sponsor; FindMyKOL does not interpret them.