Intervention research to improve care and outcomes for children with medical complexity and their families

Abstract

Healthcare and outcomes for children with medical complexity (CMC) and their families can be improved by conducting well-conceived, designed, implemented, and analyzed research studies of clinical interventions. This article presents a framework for how to approach the study of clinical interventions for CMC, including 7 key questions and example answers to each: (1) What intervention questions should be our focus? (2) What barriers to intervention research exist? (3) How do we design and optimize interventions? (4) How do we characterize and select patients to enroll? (5) How can we enhance data collection and integration? (6) How can we improve enrollment and participation? And (7) which intervention experimental designs should we choose? By exploring each of these key aspects of intervention-based research, we hope to expand thinking about and spark ideas for specific research projects focused on clinical interventions for CMC.