Health Coach Program to Improve Chronic Disease Outcomes Following an Emergency Department Visit

The purpose of this study is to determine whether health coaching initiated in the emergency department (ED) reduces subsequent ED visits, increases primary care visits, and positively impacts health outcomes in patients with diabetes and/or hypertension.

Patients will be recruited by health coaches from the Highland Hospital Emergency Department. Eligible patients who agree to participate will be randomized to the control and experimental groups in a 2:1 ratio respectively because experimental group size is limited by health coach availability and greater loss-to-follow up is expected among the control group. Repeated measures analysis will be used to compare each outcome over the study period. In addition, subgroup analyses will be performed in order to stratify by baseline survey measures or amount of ED visits in the pre-observation period.