# HomeVENT (Home Values and Experiences Navigation Track)

> **NIH NIH R01** · JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $663,635

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ ABSTRACT
The number of children with medical complexity is increasing as medical advances reduce mortality from
serious illnesses like prematurity, cardiac anomalies, and genetic syndromes. Some of these children have
respiratory insufficiency and their families face decisions about tracheostomy and home ventilation. These
children utilize the most pediatric healthcare resources, have recurrent, prolonged hospitalizations and limited
life expectancies. They and their families are at risk of reduced quality of life including limited mobility, social
isolation, financial instability, and mental strain. Families and clinicians alike feel unprepared to weigh the
benefits and burdens of home ventilation for such children. Consistent, intentional approaches to decision-
making are uncommon, with nearly half of families not even recognizing there is a choice.
HomeVENT (Home Values & Experiences Navigation Track) is a deliberative decision-support process for
families and clinicians. First, HomeVENT uses a structured family deliberation for families to integrate their
home life context and values into decisions about home ventilation. This intervention is anchored in a novel
web-based tool that meets a key counseling gap: family-to-family information. Second, HomeVENT includes a
novel structured team deliberation tool to help large, multidisciplinary clinical teams jointly assess a child's
treatment options in light of the family's home context and values. Preliminary data from 30 families suggests
families and clinicians engaged in HomeVENT felt more prepared to make decisions about home ventilation.
We will recruit 150 English- or Spanish-speaking families (n=300 parents) and two clinicians per family (n=300
clinicians) in a pre/ post cluster design at 4 geographically diverse institutions. Eligibility is triggered by a child's
need for a tracheostomy/ home ventilation decision within a month. Outcomes will be assessed at 1, 6 and 12
months. The primary outcome is family preparedness for decision-making (via PrepDM); secondary outcomes
include family and clinician perception of shared decision-making, and long-term family regret and quality of
life. We will do an exploratory analysis of cases where there was conflict or challenges with the home
ventilation decision, examining child and family outcomes in these scenarios. All Aims include analysis for role
of health equity (race/ ethnicity, income, rural vs. urban) in decision-making about Pediatric home ventilation.
The impact of this proposed research will be to improve the quality of family and clinician decision-making
about pediatric medical technology—decisions needed more frequently as pediatric medical care advances.
This research, focused on home ventilation, has far-reaching potential to transform decision processes and
outcomes for children with complex illness. Findings will inform development of similar decision supports for
other technologies, from home dialysis to feeding...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10919805
- **Project number:** 5R01HD110414-02
- **Recipient organization:** JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Renee Boss
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $663,635
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-09-04 → 2028-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10919805

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10919805, HomeVENT (Home Values and Experiences Navigation Track) (5R01HD110414-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10919805. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*
