Can Tailored Patient Letters Improve The Quality Of Diabetic Patient Care?

NCT ID: NCT00984841

Last Updated: 2009-09-25

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 467 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2009-01-31
• Study Completion Date: 2009-07-31

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to determine if tailored letters sent to diabetic patients will improve care of diabetes.

Detailed Description

Diabetes care in the US is less than optimal. Some authors have found that targeted patient letters are also an effective tool to improve outcomes when they are part of a comprehensive disease management plan. Local patient satisfaction surveys had revealed that many patients had sub-optimal understanding of diabetes measures and of the importance of controlling these measures to reduce diabetic complications. We wondered if tailored patient letters and enclosed lab orders when due might increase patient awareness of diabetes measures and increase patient engagement.We hypothesized that the addition of targeted patient letters with enclosed lab orders to an ongoing performance improvement program would further improve diabetes care.

We conducted a randomized controlled study of tailored patient letters and diabetes lab orders at our two resident-based clinics.

Conditions

Diabetes Mellitus

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Tailored letter

Patients in the tailored letter group received by mail a tailored letter detailing their diabetes measures, together with enclosed orders for lab tests when due, and reminder of or scheduling for an office appointment.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Tailored letter

Intervention Type: OTHER

Usual Care

Patients in the usual care group were part of a practice wide quality improvement process.

Group Type: ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Tailored letter

Intervention Type: OTHER

Interventions

Tailored letter

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• All active patients age 18 to 75 years with a diagnosis of diabetes mellitus were eligible.
• An active patient was defined as one having an ICD-9 code on the active problem list identifying the patient as diabetic, and a progress note in the EMR associated with an office visit within the prior 12 months.

Exclusion Criteria

• None

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 75 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Scranton-Temple Residency Program

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Scranton-Temple Residency Program

Principal Investigators

John R Guzek, MD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Scranton-Temple Residency Program

Locations

Scranton-Temple Health Center

Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States

Countries

United States

Other Identifiers

STRP001

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id