Financial Incentives to Translate ALLHAT Into Practice: A Randomized Trial
NCT ID: NCT00302718
Last Updated: 2019-01-30
Study Results
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View full resultsBasic Information
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COMPLETED
NA
83 participants
INTERVENTIONAL
2007-02-28
2012-09-30
Brief Summary
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Detailed Description
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Despite compelling evidence of the benefits of treatment, hypertension is controlled in less than one-quarter of US citizens. Using a cluster randomized controlled trial, we tested the effect of explicit physician-level and practice-level financial incentives to promote the provision of guideline-recommended anti-hypertensive medications and improved control of hypertension in the VA primary care setting.
Objectives:
The goals were to: (1) determine the effect of physician-level financial incentives on processes and outcomes of care for outpatients with hypertension; (2) assess the impact of practice-level incentives; (3) ascertain whether there were additive or synergistic effects of physician- and practice-level incentives; (4) evaluate the persistence of the effect of incentives after the intervention ceases; and (5) identify any negative impacts of incentives on patients, providers, or health care organizations.
Methods:
We randomized 12 VA hospital-based outpatient clinics to the following arms: (1) physician-level incentives; (2) practice-level incentives; (3) physician- and practice-level incentives; and (4) no incentives. We enrolled 83 primary care physicians and 42 practice group members (e.g., nurses). All participants received audit and feedback performance reports. Study measures included the use of guideline-recommended anti-hypertensive medications and the proportion of patients who achieved national (JNC 7) guideline-recommended blood pressure goals or received an appropriate response to uncontrolled blood pressure. The intervention period consisted of five four-month performance periods. For each period, trained reviewers collected medications, blood pressure readings, comorbid conditions, medication allergies, and lifestyle recommendations from the VA electronic health record system for a sample of eligible patients from the physicians' panels. After the final performance report, we implemented a 12-month washout period. To determine the impact of incentives for the intervention period, we performed a repeated-measures longitudinal analysis using the hospital as a random effect. We evaluated the rate of change in the proportion of patients who met the study measures over time for the intervention group physicians. We assessed post-washout performance using a linear analysis with clustering by hospital. To evaluate unintended consequences of the incentives, we examined the incidence of hypotension in the physicians' panels.
Status:
The study is completed. The primary findings were published in September 2013 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). We are currently preparing manuscripts describing findings from the study's secondary aims.
Conditions
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Study Design
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RANDOMIZED
PARALLEL
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
NONE
Study Groups
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Physician-level incentives
Examines the effect of physician-level financial incentives on hypertension quality of care
Physician-level financial incentives
Enrolled physician participants are eligible to receive financial incentives and audit and feedback reports based on their performance during a 4-month interval on the hypertension care study outcomes.
Practice-level incentives
Examines the effect of practice-level financial incentives on hypertension quality of care
Practice-level financial incentives
Enrolled practices (physician physicians and non-physician primary care personnel) are eligible to receive financial incentives and audit and feedback reports based on the performance of the practice during a 4-month interval on the hypertension care study outcomes.
Physician- and practice-level incentives
Examines the effect of physician- and practice-level financial incentives on hypertension quality of care
Physician- and practice-level financial incentives
Enrolled participants are eligible to receive financial incentives and audit and feedback reports based on performance during a 4-month interval on the hypertension care study outcomes. This arm tests the effect of combined financial incentives (physician-level incentives and practice-level incentives).
No incentives (control)
Physician participants in this arm received only audit and feedback performance reports as did the participants in the intervention arms.
No interventions assigned to this group
Interventions
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Physician-level financial incentives
Enrolled physician participants are eligible to receive financial incentives and audit and feedback reports based on their performance during a 4-month interval on the hypertension care study outcomes.
Practice-level financial incentives
Enrolled practices (physician physicians and non-physician primary care personnel) are eligible to receive financial incentives and audit and feedback reports based on the performance of the practice during a 4-month interval on the hypertension care study outcomes.
Physician- and practice-level financial incentives
Enrolled participants are eligible to receive financial incentives and audit and feedback reports based on performance during a 4-month interval on the hypertension care study outcomes. This arm tests the effect of combined financial incentives (physician-level incentives and practice-level incentives).
Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria
We defined a full-time primary care physician as spending at least 0.60 full-time equivalent (FTE) delivering patient care services in the primary care setting or having a panel size of at least 500 patients at the time of study arm randomization. The primary care settings included internal medicine, primary care medical clinics, and women's health care clinics. The trial did not actively recruit patients into the study. This study retrospectively reviewed a random sample of health records of eligible patients that had clinical encounters with the physician participants.
Exclusion Criteria
ALL
No
Sponsors
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National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
NIH
VA Office of Research and Development
FED
Responsible Party
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Principal Investigators
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Laura A. Petersen, MD MPH
Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX
Locations
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VA Medical Center, Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
VA Connecticut Health Care System (Newington)
Newington, Connecticut, United States
VA Medical Center, Augusta
Augusta, Georgia, United States
VA Medical Center, Jamaica Plain Campus
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
John D. Dingell VA Medical Center, Detroit
Detroit, Michigan, United States
Aleda E. Lutz VA Medical Center
Saginaw, Michigan, United States
VA Medical Center, Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center, Jackson
Jackson, Mississippi, United States
VA Medical Center, Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States
VA Medical Center, Providence
Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Ralph H Johnson VA Medical Center, Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina, United States
Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX
Houston, Texas, United States
Countries
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References
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Petersen LA, Simpson K, Pietz K, Urech TH, Hysong SJ, Profit J, Conrad DA, Dudley RA, Woodard LD. Effects of individual physician-level and practice-level financial incentives on hypertension care: a randomized trial. JAMA. 2013 Sep 11;310(10):1042-50. doi: 10.1001/jama.2013.276303.
Hysong SJ, Simpson K, Pietz K, SoRelle R, Broussard Smitham K, Petersen LA. Financial incentives and physician commitment to guideline-recommended hypertension management. Am J Manag Care. 2012 Oct 1;18(10):e378-91.
Petersen LA, Woodard LD, Urech TH. Financial incentives to control hypertension in patients--reply. JAMA. 2014 Jan 15;311(3):303-4. doi: 10.1001/jama.2013.284315. No abstract available.
Woodard LD, Landrum CR, Urech TH, Wang D, Virani SS, Petersen LA. Impact of clinical complexity on the quality of diabetes care. Am J Manag Care. 2012 Sep;18(9):508-14.
Petersen LA, Simpson K, Sorelle R, Urech T, Chitwood SS. How variability in the institutional review board review process affects minimal-risk multisite health services research. Ann Intern Med. 2012 May 15;156(10):728-35. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-156-10-201205150-00011.
Woodard LD, Urech T, Landrum CR, Wang D, Petersen LA. Impact of comorbidity type on measures of quality for diabetes care. Med Care. 2011 Jun;49(6):605-10. doi: 10.1097/MLR.0b013e31820f0ed0.
Virani SS, Steinberg L, Murray T, Negi S, Nambi V, Woodard LD, Bozkurt B, Petersen LA, Ballantyne CM. Barriers to non-HDL cholesterol goal attainment by providers. Am J Med. 2011 Sep;124(9):876-80.e2. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2011.02.012.
Petersen LA, Urech T, Simpson K, Pietz K, Hysong SJ, Profit J, Conrad D, Dudley RA, Lutschg MZ, Petzel R, Woodard LD. Design, rationale, and baseline characteristics of a cluster randomized controlled trial of pay for performance for hypertension treatment: study protocol. Implement Sci. 2011 Oct 3;6:114. doi: 10.1186/1748-5908-6-114.
Petersen LA. Pay for performance in myocardial infarction: are we reaping the rewards? Nat Clin Pract Cardiovasc Med. 2008 Mar;5(3):134-5. doi: 10.1038/ncpcardio1069. Epub 2007 Dec 4. No abstract available.
Van Swol MA. Does pay-for-performance improve the quality of health care? Ann Intern Med. 2007 Apr 3;146(7):538; author reply 538-9. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-146-7-200704030-00015. No abstract available.
Petersen LA, Urech TH, Byrne MM, Pietz K. Do financial incentives in a globally budgeted healthcare payment system produce changes in the way patients are categorized? A five-year study. Am J Manag Care. 2007 Sep;13(9):513-22.
Petersen LA, Simpson K, Urech T, Woodard L, Hysong S, Dudley RA. Do financial incentives to health care providers generate greater interest in adhering to performance measures than audit and feedback alone. Journal of general internal medicine. 2009 Apr 1; 24(S1):S58-S59.
Petersen LA, Woodard LD, Henderson LM, Urech TH, Pietz K. Will hypertension performance measures used for pay-for-performance programs penalize those who care for medically complex patients? Circulation. 2009 Jun 16;119(23):2978-85. doi: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.108.836544. Epub 2009 Jun 1.
Woodard LD, Petersen LA. Improving the performance of performance measurement. J Gen Intern Med. 2010 Feb;25(2):100-1. doi: 10.1007/s11606-009-1198-z. No abstract available.
Petersen LA, Woodard LD, Urech T, Daw C, Sookanan S. Does pay-for-performance improve the quality of health care? Ann Intern Med. 2006 Aug 15;145(4):265-72. doi: 10.7326/0003-4819-145-4-200608150-00006.
Hysong SJ, Kell HJ, Petersen LA, Campbell BA, Trautner BW. Theory-based and evidence-based design of audit and feedback programmes: examples from two clinical intervention studies. BMJ Qual Saf. 2017 Apr;26(4):323-334. doi: 10.1136/bmjqs-2015-004796. Epub 2016 Jun 10.
Petersen LA, Ramos KS, Pietz K, Woodard LD. Impact of a Pay-for-Performance Program on Care for Black Patients with Hypertension: Important Answers in the Era of the Affordable Care Act. Health Serv Res. 2017 Jun;52(3):1138-1155. doi: 10.1111/1475-6773.12517. Epub 2016 Jun 22.
Hysong SJ, SoRelle R, Broussard Smitham K, Petersen LA. Reports of unintended consequences of financial incentives to improve management of hypertension. PLoS One. 2017 Sep 21;12(9):e0184856. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184856. eCollection 2017.
Other Identifiers
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IIR 04-349
Identifier Type: -
Identifier Source: org_study_id
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