Table 2.

Reasons Patients Declined Enrollment

Theme for declining enrollment	Illustrative quote	n (%)
Fear/safety at home	“I feel more safe in the hospital with these symptoms.”	31 (20)
Comfort/ease/desire to stay in traditional hospital	“I am comfortable here. I do not want to leave the hospital now.”	31 (20)
Clinician/ED declines for patient factors	Per clinician: “Patient should stay in hospital for initial diagnosis of right heart failure.”	25 (16)
Simply declines without reason	“I’m not feeling up to it today.”	18 (11)
Non-therapeutic home	Per daughter: “We have bed bugs in the house.”	17 (11)
Concern for caregiver burden	Per son: “It will be too difficult and stressful for my mom to have [my dad] at home.”	10 (6)
Other reason	Per wife: “You can’t bring IV things into my home.”	10 (6)
Could not reach caregiver	Daughter (proxy) not present to sign consent or reachable by phone.	7 (4)
No response captured	-	5 (3)
Facility time constraints	Per clinician: “Patient needs to go up [to the medicine floor] now.”	3 (2)