Aligning Medications With What Matters Most

NCT ID: NCT04938648

Last Updated: 2023-05-26

Study Results

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Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

138 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2021-06-03

Study Completion Date

2022-05-02

Brief Summary

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The Aligning Medications with What Matters Most (ALIGN) study will assess the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a deprescribing intervention to reduce medication regimen complexity and treatment burden for people living with dementia (PLWD) and their care partners.

Detailed Description

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People living with dementia (PLWD) use more medications and have more complex medication regimens than people without dementia. Medication regimen complexity is a major source of burden for family caregivers of PLWD and has been associated with numerous adverse outcomes. Therefore, the investigators propose a novel intervention, ALIGN: Aligning Medications with What Matters Most, to optimize prescribing and reduce medication regimen complexity by focusing on what matters most to the patient and caregiver, beyond rigid adherence to clinical practice guidelines. ALIGN is informed by learnings from OPTIMIZE, the investigator team's patient-centered, pragmatic deprescribing intervention for PLWD in primary care that is currently being prospectively evaluated. OPTIMIZE consists of a patient-level intervention comprised of a deprescribing educational brochure, and a clinician-level intervention comprised of a deprescribing educational session for primary care providers (PCPs), deprescribing "tip sheets" and clinic-level feedback on rates of potentially inappropriate medication prescribing in PLWD. ALIGN builds on OPTIMIZE by more explicitly addressing the informational and decisional needs of caregivers through a shared decision making process facilitated by clinical pharmacists. The investigators propose a pilot study to assess the feasibility and acceptability of ALIGN in two different health care systems, and to identify the most appropriate primary outcome measure for a subsequent embedded pragmatic trial (ePCT). Target enrollment is 60 patient-care partner dyads. Patients will be aged ≥65 years with dementia and \>5 chronic medications. Primary outcomes are intervention feasibility and acceptability among patients, care partners and PCPs; and feasibility of the patient-level Medication Regimen Complexity Index and Family Caregiver Medication Administration Hassles Scale at baseline and 3 months. Findings from this pilot study will guide the design, implementation and subsequent evaluation of ALIGN in an ePCT, laying the groundwork to reduce medication regimen complexity and burden for PLWD and their caregivers in diverse primary care settings.

This proposed pragmatic intervention has the following aims:

Specific Aim 1: To assess the feasibility and acceptability of ALIGN in two different health care systems, to guide the subsequent evaluation of the effectiveness of the intervention in an embedded pragmatic trial (ePCT).

Specific Aim 2: To determine the feasibility of the primary and secondary outcome measures for the subsequent ePCT.

1. To determine the feasibility of measuring the primary outcome, the patient-level Medication Regimen Complexity Index (pMRCI), within the existing electronic health record (EHR) systems, and to compare it with a more pragmatic measure, chronic medication count, as the primary outcome measure for the ePCT.
2. To determine the feasibility of measuring the secondary outcome, the Family Caregiver Medication Administration Hassles Scale (FCMAHS), a caregiver-reported outcome measure.

Conditions

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Polypharmacy Alzheimer Disease and Related Dementias

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Patient and care partner dyads are randomly assigned to receive the pharmacist-led intervention immediately after an educational mailing or to a delayed intervention control group that will receive the pharmacist-led component 3 months after the mailing.
Primary Study Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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Intervention

The intervention consists of the following:

1. mailing deprescribing educational materials to care partners and people living with dementia (PLWD);
2. dyads will receive a telehealth visit with a clinical pharmacist to discuss the benefits and harms of the patient's medications with the patient and care partner in the context of their goals and preferences;
3. pharmacist- primary care provider (PCP) communication in which the pharmacist provides tailored deprescribing recommendations to the PCP.

Group Type EXPERIMENTAL

Pharmacist-led deprescribing intervention

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

1\) direct-to-consumer deprescribing educational materials designed to activate the care partner and people living with dementia PLWD; 2) a telehealth visit in which a clinical pharmacist discusses benefits and harms of the patient's medications with the patient and care partner in the context of their goals and preferences; and 3) pharmacist-PCP communication in which the pharmacist provides tailored deprescribing recommendations designed to be useful and actionable for the PCP

Delayed Intervention (wait list control)

The delayed intervention consists of the following:

1. mailing deprescribing educational materials to care partners and people living with dementia (PLWD);
2. three months after mailing the deprescribing educational materials, dyads will receive a telehealth visit with a clinical pharmacist to discuss the benefits and harms of the patient's medications with the patient and care partner in the context of their goals and preferences.
3. pharmacist- primary care provider (PCP) communication in which the pharmacist provides tailored deprescribing recommendations to the PCP.

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Pharmacist-led deprescribing intervention

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

1\) direct-to-consumer deprescribing educational materials designed to activate the care partner and people living with dementia PLWD; 2) a telehealth visit in which a clinical pharmacist discusses benefits and harms of the patient's medications with the patient and care partner in the context of their goals and preferences; and 3) pharmacist-PCP communication in which the pharmacist provides tailored deprescribing recommendations designed to be useful and actionable for the PCP

Interventions

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Pharmacist-led deprescribing intervention

1\) direct-to-consumer deprescribing educational materials designed to activate the care partner and people living with dementia PLWD; 2) a telehealth visit in which a clinical pharmacist discusses benefits and harms of the patient's medications with the patient and care partner in the context of their goals and preferences; and 3) pharmacist-PCP communication in which the pharmacist provides tailored deprescribing recommendations designed to be useful and actionable for the PCP

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Age 65 or greater
* Diagnosis of dementia from International Classification of Diseases (ICD) -9 or ICD-10 codes
* At least one other chronic condition
* Five or more chronic medications (to include all prescription and over-the-counter medications, both scheduled and as needed)
* Have a primary care physician at the pilot clinic who has enrolled in the study; this will be defined as having had at least 1 previous visit with that physician

Care partners:

\- Family or other companions age 21 years or greater who regularly help the patient with managing medications

Exclusion Criteria

* As both the pilot and the planned pragmatic trial will be based in primary care, individuals residing in long term care facilities or enrolled in hospice will be excluded.
* Individuals who cannot converse comfortably in English will be excluded because the FCMAHS has not been validated in other languages.
Minimum Eligible Age

65 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

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Kaiser Permanente

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

NIH

Sponsor Role collaborator

Johns Hopkins University

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Responsibility Role SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

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Ariel Green, MD, MPH, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Johns Hopkins University

Locations

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Kaiser Permanente

Aurora, Colorado, United States

Site Status

Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center

Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Site Status

Countries

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United States

References

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Boyd CM, Darer J, Boult C, Fried LP, Boult L, Wu AW. Clinical practice guidelines and quality of care for older patients with multiple comorbid diseases: implications for pay for performance. JAMA. 2005 Aug 10;294(6):716-24. doi: 10.1001/jama.294.6.716.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 16091574 (View on PubMed)

Alzheimer's Association. 2016 Alzheimer's disease facts and figures. Alzheimers Dement. 2016 Apr;12(4):459-509. doi: 10.1016/j.jalz.2016.03.001.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 27570871 (View on PubMed)

Lin PJ, Fillit HM, Cohen JT, Neumann PJ. Potentially avoidable hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. Alzheimers Dement. 2013 Jan;9(1):30-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jalz.2012.11.002.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 23305822 (View on PubMed)

Kelley AS, McGarry K, Gorges R, Skinner JS. The burden of health care costs for patients with dementia in the last 5 years of life. Ann Intern Med. 2015 Nov 17;163(10):729-36. doi: 10.7326/M15-0381. Epub 2015 Oct 27.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 26502320 (View on PubMed)

Willson MN, Greer CL, Weeks DL. Medication regimen complexity and hospital readmission for an adverse drug event. Ann Pharmacother. 2014 Jan;48(1):26-32. doi: 10.1177/1060028013510898. Epub 2013 Nov 5.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 24259639 (View on PubMed)

Bayliss EA, Shetterly SM, Drace ML, Norton J, Green AR, Reeve E, Weffald LA, Wright L, Maciejewski ML, Sheehan OC, Wolff JL, Gleason KS, Kraus C, Maiyani M, Du Vall M, Boyd CM. The OPTIMIZE patient- and family-centered, primary care-based deprescribing intervention for older adults with dementia or mild cognitive impairment and multiple chronic conditions: study protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2020 Jun 18;21(1):542. doi: 10.1186/s13063-020-04482-0.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 32552857 (View on PubMed)

Group Health Research Institute. The Chronic Care Model. Available at http://www.improvingchroniccare.org/index.php?p=CCM_Gallery&s=149. Accessed August 21, 2020

Reference Type BACKGROUND

George J, Phun YT, Bailey MJ, Kong DC, Stewart K. Development and validation of the medication regimen complexity index. Ann Pharmacother. 2004 Sep;38(9):1369-76. doi: 10.1345/aph.1D479. Epub 2004 Jul 20.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 15266038 (View on PubMed)

Travis SS, Bernard MA, McAuley WJ, Thornton M, Kole T. Development of the family caregiver medication administration hassles scale. Gerontologist. 2003 Jun;43(3):360-8. doi: 10.1093/geront/43.3.360.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 12810899 (View on PubMed)

Provided Documents

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Document Type: Study Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan

View Document

Other Identifiers

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5U54AG063546-02

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: secondary_id

View Link

IRB00286353

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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