Recital
Our Team
The RECITAL trial, also known as the Virtual Fracture Clinic Trial, is a non-inferiority randomised controlled trial designed to evaluate whether virtual fracture clinics can provide care that is as effective as traditional in-person fracture clinics for people with simple bone fractures. Simple bone fractures, which do not require surgery or plaster casting, often need minimal care such as advice and monitoring by a physiotherapist. Traditionally, this care has been provided by in-person clinics at public hospitals, which often have long wait times.
With advancements in telemedicine, hospitals have started offering follow-up fracture care remotely through phone or video calls. The RECITAL trial aims to determine if this virtual clinic approach is as effective as in-person clinics in terms of patient function, recovery, and other outcomes.
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The trial will recruit 312 participants from two metropolitan hospitals in Sydney, Australia. Adult patients with acute simple fractures that can be managed with a removable splint and are deemed appropriate for follow-up at either the virtual or in-person fracture clinic by an orthopaedic doctor will be eligible to participate. Patients with complex fractures requiring a cast or surgery will not be eligible.
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Participants will be randomly assigned to receive follow-up care either at the virtual fracture clinic or the in-person fracture clinic. Those in the virtual clinic group will be reviewed within five days of receiving a referral through video calls with a physiotherapist. Participants in the in-person clinic group will be reviewed by an orthopaedic doctor within 7-10 days of receiving a referral.
The primary outcome of the trial will be the patient's physical function, measured using the Patient-Specific Functional Scale at 12 weeks. Secondary outcomes will include health-related quality of life, patient-reported experiences, pain, health costs, healthcare utilisation, medication use, adverse events, emergency department representations, and surgery.
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The RECITAL trial will provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of virtual fracture clinics and improve the accessibility and efficiency of fracture care.
This trial is funded by the 2022 MRFF Clinician Researchers - Nurses Midwives and Allied Health
RECITAL: a non-inferiority randomised control trial evaluating a virtual fracture clinic compared with in-person care for people with simple fractures (study protocol).
