Electronic Health Record (EHR) Decision Support to Improve Outpatient Asthma Care

December 22, 2011 updated by: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

EHR Decision Support to Improve Outpatient Asthma Care

To determine whether an innovative clinical decision support system embedded in an existing electronic health record (EHR) will improve provider adherence to the existing National Asthma Education and Prevention Program (NAEPP) guidelines.

12 primary care pediatric practices at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia(both urban and suburban sites) will be randomized to receive either a passive EHR (control sites) or an interactive decision support system (intervention sites).

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

After receiving a standardized education module based on NAEPP guidelines, 12 primary care pediatric practices (both urban and suburban sites) will be randomized to receive either a passive EHR (control sites) or an interactive decision support system (intervention sites).

The primary outcome of interest will be the proportion of patients on appropriate asthma controller medication compared over time. Secondary outcomes include the proportion of asthma patients with: 1) an updated asthma action plan 2) documentation of spirometry performed (6 to 17 yrs) and 3) an updated problem list reflecting current asthma severity. After hours calls to providers and types of office visits related to asthma will be tracked. 4) In addition, measurement of asthma-related quality of life and missed school and work in a sample of 200 subjects from each group will be performed. Contextual factors at the clinic and patient level will be examined to assess their association with outcomes of interest.

If shown to be successful, this type of clinical decision support, embedded within the EHR, has the potential to be a powerful tool to improve the implementation of asthma guidelines and clinical practice guidelines for other conditions and illnesses in the primary setting.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

12

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

  • United States
    • Pennsylvania
      • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, 19104
        • The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

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

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Known patients with asthma

Exclusion Criteria:

  • None

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: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: None (Open Label)

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Other: Control arm
Practices with the EHR implemented will be randomized have the asthma disease management tools available passively (the control group).
Other: Control

The asthma disease management toolkit available to all practices in the EHR will consist of four elements:

  • A data entry tool for capturing asthma control data
  • Standardized documentation templates to facilitate severity classification
  • Order sets to facilitate ordering controller medications
  • An asthma care plan that can be supplied to families
Other: Intervention arm
The intervention sites will have decision support alerts and reminders activated to guide providers toward these tools in the appropriate situations.
Other: Intervention

Three alerts and two reminders will be programmed:

  • Alert providers to enter asthma severity classification if none is on file
  • Alert providers to prescribe controller medications for persistent asthma if none on file
  • Alert providers to complete an asthma care plan if none on file
  • Remind providers to review the asthma care plan if it is already on file by providing a link to the form
  • Remind providers that educational content is available on-line by providing a web link

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
The primary outcome measure is the proportion of persistent asthmatic patients with at least one prescription for a controller medication in each period. There are two periods of study: baseline and intervention.
Time Frame: 6 months
6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Secondary outcomes include the proportion of persistent asthmatic patients with 1)an updated asthma action plan, 2)spirometry as needed 3)problem list with current asthma severity 4)asthma-related quality of life scores 5)absent school and work days.
Time Frame: 6 months
6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Collaborators

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Louis M Bell, MD, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

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

January 1, 2006

Primary Completion (Actual)

July 1, 2009

Study Completion (Actual)

August 1, 2009

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 9, 2009

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 9, 2009

First Posted (Estimate)

June 11, 2009

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

December 23, 2011

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 22, 2011

Last Verified

December 1, 2011

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2005-11-4596

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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