Care Coordination Approaches to Learning Lupus Self-management

The Care-coordination Approach to Learning Lupus Self-Management (CALLS) study was designed to examine whether modeling and reinforcement from a lay patient navigator/care coordinator improves disease self-management, indicators of disease activity, health related quality of life (HRQOL), and 30-day readmission in SLE inpatient admissions. We recruited 30 patients (\~15 questionnaires and phone sessions and 15 questionnaires only) with active SLE upon hospital admittance at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). The lay patient navigator/care coordinator was trained to deliver intervention content by twelve weekly telephone sessions carried out across the course of the study. All participants were assessed using validated measures of patient reported outcomes at baseline, mid-intervention (6 weeks post-enrollment), and immediately following the intervention (12 weeks post-enrollment). Outcomes for patients who agreed to phone sessions were compared with the outcomes of patients who opted to participate in questionnaires only. The study lasted 12 months, with recruitment and enrollment over 6 months, 3 months for intervention delivery and 3 months for data analysis.