Assessment of a Medication Reconciliation Program on Transitional Care

April 16, 2007 updated by: Kaiser Permanente

Impact of a Medication Reconciliation Program on Patients Transitioning From an Inpatient Hospitalization to Primary Care

The purpose of this study is to assess and compare the effectiveness of the Kaiser Permanente Colorado's (KPCO) Call Center's Medication Reconciliation Program and standard care in regards to their impacts on emergency department (ED) and urgent care visits, inpatient rehospitalizations, and adherence to preferred, formulary medications.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

This study will be a health services evaluation. This study will be a pilot study utilizing a randomized controlled trial design. This study will utilize secondary data collected from existing KPCO databases to assess outcomes. Interventions will occur over a one-month period. The study will take approximately twelve months to conduct including the data collection and analysis, results interpretation, and manuscript and report preparation. The duration of intervention group subject participation will be limited to the length of the medication reconciliation counseling phone call and the 3-month follow-up period while the duration of control group subject participation will be limited to the 3-month follow-up period.

KPCO internists discharging patients on medications to ambulatory care from either the Good Samaritan or St. Joseph hospitals over a four-week period will send discharge orders to the CPCC via Health Connect. Project-dedicated CPCC pharmacists will utilize the inclusion and exclusion criteria to determine patient eligibility. Project-dedicated CPCC staff will make several attempts at varying times during the 24 hours following reception of the discharge note in Health Connect to conduct the telephonic consent process among eligible patients. If a patient can not be contacted after several attempts, the staff member will leave a HIPAA-compliant message, if possible, to request either the patient or his/her caregiver call the CPCC. If the subject doesn't not contact the CPCC after being left such a message, the staff member will make two attempts the following day to contact the subject and/or his/her caregiver. Patients consenting to participate will be categorized by hospital and, based on category, randomly assigned to the intervention or control group. Project-dedicated pharmacists will review intervention group subjects' discharge medication orders, identify discrepancies between their primary care regimen and the hospital discharge orders, and collaborate with the patient's primary care physician or discharging provider to reconcile any discrepancies. Project-dedicated pharmacists will make several telephonic attempts at varying times during the 24 hours post-assignment to contact an intervention group subject and/or his/her caregiver to execute the medication review counseling after performing the medication review. If the subject can not be contacted after several attempts, the pharmacist will leave a HIPAA-compliant message, if possible, to request either the subject or his/her caregiver call the CPCC. If the subject doesn't not contact the CPCC in the day after being left such a message, the pharmacist will make two attempts per day for two more days to contact the subject and/or his/her caregiver. Assignment dates will be used as an index dates from which rolling baseline and follow-up periods will be determined.

Data will be analyzed on an intention-to-treat basis. Baseline subject characteristics and study outcomes for each of the cohorts will be reported as means, medians, and standard deviations for interval- and ratio-level variables (e.g., age) and proportions for nominal- and ordinal-level data (e.g., gender, hospital discharge diagnoses, post-discharge ED and urgent care visits, IP readmission). Interval-and ratio-level variables will be assessed for normality of their distributions. Appropriate parametric (e.g., independent samples t-test) or non-parametric (e.g., Wilcoxon rank-sum test) statistical tests will then be performed to assess differences in mean or median values. Ordinal-level and nominal-level will be assessed with the Pearson's chi-square statistical test. Logistic regression modeling will be used to assess the relationships between the group and binary data (e.g., ED and urgent care visits, receiving a non-preferred formulary agent) while adjusting for potential confounders (e.g., age, hospital discharge diagnosis, gender, CDS).

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment

200

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

    • Colorado
      • Aurora, Colorado, United States, 80011
        • Kaiser-Permanente Colorado Region, Clinical Pharmacy Dept.

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

- KPCO members discharged on medications from either the Good Samaritan or St. Joseph hospitals

Exclusion Criteria:

- Discharged from the IP to a hospice or long term care or skilled nursing facility, less than 18 years of age, discharged from a hospital other than Good Samaritan or St. Joseph, or enrolled in another trial that is identified in Health Connect EMR

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Number of emergency room visits post-discharge
Number of urgent care visits post-discharge
Number of inpatient rehospitalizations
Adherence to preferred, formulary medications

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Thomas M Delate, PhD, Kaiser-Permanente Colorado Region, Clinical Pharmacy Department

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

June 1, 2005

Study Completion (Actual)

March 1, 2007

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 16, 2007

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 16, 2007

First Posted (Estimate)

April 18, 2007

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

April 18, 2007

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 16, 2007

Last Verified

April 1, 2007

More Information

Terms related to this study

Other Study ID Numbers

  • CO-05TDela-02

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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