In order to implement evidence-based practice in the modern health care setting, it is paramount to use evidence gathered by scholars and reported in articles published in peer-reviewed journals. The current paper criticizes one such article that was written by Ong et al. (2016).
The article by Ong et al. (2016) reports a quantitative research study that involved performing a randomized clinical trial with 1437 patients. The investigated problem pertains to the effectiveness of transition of patients with heart failure who were discharged from a hospital (Ong et al., 2016). The purpose of the research was to evaluate the impact of the Better Effectiveness After Transition–Heart Failure (BEAT-HF) on hospital readmission rates (Ong et al., 2016). The objective of the study was to assess the efficaciousness of an intervention aimed at enhancing transition practices for elderly patients with heart failure in order to lower the rates of hospital readmissions due to all causes over the course of 180 days after the discharge; the intervention involved employing telemonitoring technologies and performing additional phone calls (Ong et al., 2016).
The primary research hypothesis of the study by Ong et al. (2016) was that the patients who were provided with an intervention consisting of additional nine phone calls over a period of six months, along with telemonitoring control that involved daily measurements of these patients’ blood pressure, weight, heart rate, and obtaining their responses to three questions about certain symptoms, would display significantly lower rates of hospital readmissions due to any causes over a period of 180 days after they were discharged when compared to the patients from the control group; the latter were provided only with standard care according to the protocols of the hospitals that they were discharged from. The secondary research hypotheses were as follows: 1) the patients from the intervention group would demonstrate lower rates of readmissions due to any reasons over the period of 30 days after their discharge than the patients from the control group; 2) the patients from the experimental group would show lower mortality rates due to any causes over 30 and 180 days than the patients from the control group; 3) the patients from the intervention group would have a better quality of life over 30 and 180 days after their discharge than the patients from the control group (Ong et al., 2016).
As for the review of literature conducted by Ong et al. (2016), the authors did not specifically include a section named “Literature Review”; instead, a succinct review is provided in the introduction to their paper. Nevertheless, the authors cite 34 different sources. Although the list of references in the paper by Ong et al. (2016) includes one 2004 article and several studies conducted in 2006-2010, most of the articles cited were published after 2010, so it is possible to state that the literature review in question is current (the paper was published in 2016). The cited studies pertain to the problem of hospital readmissions, patient transition, and so on, so the literature review carried out by Ong et al. (2016) is relevant. It should also be pointed out that, despite the brevity of the said literature review, there is evidence that the cited studies were criticized. For instance, the authors cite studies reporting that interventions aimed at improving transition allow for lowering readmissions and possibly for decreasing mortality and morbidity; after that, they point out that many of these studies were conducted in single centers and involved rather low quantities of participants, which is apparently a criticism of these articles (Ong et al., 2016, p. 311).
When it comes to the theoretical or conceptual framework used in the study, it should be observed that Ong et al. (2016) do not identify any such frameworks in their paper.
On the whole, the study by Ong et al. (2016) is a quantitative study researching the effectiveness of telemonitoring in enhancing patient transition and improving patient outcomes. The authors provide a brief, but high-quality literature review in their study. However, no particular theoretical or conceptual framework is indicated in their article.
Reference
Ong, M. K., Romano, P. S., Edgington, S., Aronow, H. U., Auerbach, A. D., Black, J. T.,…Fonarow, G. C. (2016). Effectiveness of remote patient monitoring after discharge of hospitalized patients with heart failure: The better effectiveness after transition–heart failure (BEAT-HF) randomized clinical trial. JAMA Internal Medicine, 176(3), 310-318. Web.