Quality Improvement and Personalization for Statins

NCT ID: NCT02820870

Last Updated: 2019-12-20

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 43 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2016-03-31
• Study Completion Date: 2016-10-01

Brief Summary

The investigators developed novel quality improvement intervention consisting of a personalized decision support tool, an educational program, a performance measure, and an audit and feedback system to encourage the adoption of the VA/DoD guidelines for the use of statin medicines. The investigators then performed a cluster randomized trial of the intervention in a single clinic.

Detailed Description

The VA/DoD Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Dyslipidemia for Cardiovascular Risk Reduction has created clinical practice guidelines that have been officially adopted by VA. The new guidelines are substantially different than previous guidelines, and arguably somewhat more complicated. Complicating matters somewhat, the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology passed similar, but not identical, guidelines one year earlier and VA is also planning to adopt HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) performance measures for managing dyslipidemia, which are also similar, but not identical to the VA guidelines. Changing recommendations plus this misalignment - two guidelines, one performance measure, none identical or perfectly-understood - could create confusion and unclear guidance for practitioners.

The investigators are proposing a partnership with CAR and VA Ann Arbor Primary Care on a QI project to improve the adoption of these guidelines with a time and resource-efficient implementation strategy that will be tested in ten PACT teamlets.

As part of the larger project, the investigators have designed an efficient, multi-pronged intervention to improve statin use. The investigators first developed a preliminary intervention. The investigators then already conducted an assessment of the barriers and facilitators to implementation to obtain provider feedback to improve the planned intervention and develop ideas to make it better.

The intervention will have two parts. First, all clinicians at VA Ann Arbor received an educational session about the new guidelines. Second, the investigators have randomly divided the PACT teamlets in half. One half, "usual care," will receive all changes that VA in planning for the new guidelines.

The providers in the "intervention" group will receive the full intervention. This includes a personalized decision support tool for every guideline-discordant patient during the time of the intervention based on the VA guidelines. They will also receive automated personalized audit and feedback reports based on the guidelines that the investigators have developed together with VA's Center for Analytics and Reporting (CAR). Providers will also receive a poster in their clinical rooms alerting patients that the guidelines have changed.

Post-study clarification: The analysis divided the study in to three time periods. There was a period before the intervention (pre-QI) from December 12, 2015 to March 20, 2016; during the intervention (QI) from March 29-June 30, 2016, and after the intervention (post-QI) from July 1, 2016 to September 30, 2016. Each period was divided by study arm. All analyses were compared to the pre-QI baseline. Analyses were at the level of the patient visit. Eligible patients were those recommended statins by the VA/DoD clinical practice guidelines, but not receiving them.

Conditions

Cardiovascular Disease

Keywords

Cardiovascular Disease; Quality Improvement; Decision Support Tool; Performance Measurement; Primary Prevention

Study Design

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

Study Groups

Primary Care Intervention Group

Primary care providers will receive a generated print-out of statin recommendations for patient whose current medication therapy is not consistent with the new guidelines (i.e., are "guideline discordant"). Each day the research assistant will deliver a hardcopy of these patient specific recommendations to the teamlets for their use. In addition, providers will receive monthly audit and feedback reports on the percentage of their patients meeting the guidelines.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

Statin Decision Support Intervention

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

The investigators have developed a "mock" medical record decision support tool for this project. Each week the investigators will pull a list of patients scheduled for a primary care visit at the Ann Arbor VAMC then calculate each patient's risk based on the clinical guidelines algorithm and compare the statin recommendation against their current prescriptions. For each patient whose current medication therapy is not consistent with the new guidelines (i.e., are "guideline discordant"), a brief recommendation will be generated. Each day the research assistant will deliver a hardcopy of these patient specific recommendations to the providers for their use. In addition, providers will receive monthly audit and feedback reports on the percentage of their patients meeting the guideline.

Usual Care Group

PACT teams that were not randomized to the intervention will serve as a usual care group and will be expected to follow the VA guidelines and HEDIS measures as part of the VA national roll-out.

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

Statin Decision Support Intervention

The investigators have developed a "mock" medical record decision support tool for this project. Each week the investigators will pull a list of patients scheduled for a primary care visit at the Ann Arbor VAMC then calculate each patient's risk based on the clinical guidelines algorithm and compare the statin recommendation against their current prescriptions. For each patient whose current medication therapy is not consistent with the new guidelines (i.e., are "guideline discordant"), a brief recommendation will be generated. Each day the research assistant will deliver a hardcopy of these patient specific recommendations to the providers for their use. In addition, providers will receive monthly audit and feedback reports on the percentage of their patients meeting the guideline.

Intervention Type: BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Eligible physicians were practicing PACT primary care physicians in the Ann Arbor VA Healthcare System.
• Eligible patients those who were seen in primary care during the period of analysis who were under 75 and who would be recommended a moderate-or-high-strength statin according to the VA/DoD guidelines, but were not on one at the time of the visit according to the electronic health record

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Maximum Eligible Age: 75 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

VA Office of Research and Development

FED

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Jeremy B. Sussman, MD MS

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Ann Arbor, MI

Locations

VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Ann Arbor, MI

Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States

Countries

United States

References

B Sussman J, Holleman RG, Youles B, Lowery JC. Quality Improvement and Personalization for Statins: the QUIPS Quality Improvement Randomized Trial of Veterans' Primary Care Statin Use. J Gen Intern Med. 2018 Dec;33(12):2132-2137. doi: 10.1007/s11606-018-4681-6. Epub 2018 Oct 3.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 30284172 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

QUE 15-286

Identifier Type: OTHER_GRANT

Identifier Source: secondary_id

QUX 16-002

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id