Personalized Medicine Decision-Making in a Virtual Clinical Setting

June 5, 2026 updated by: National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)

Medical Decision-Making in a Virtual Clinical Setting

Background:

-How people respond to drugs depends in part on their genes. For some drugs, doctors can use an individuals genetic background to help in dosing the drug. Researchers want to know how doctors incorporate personalized or genomic medicine into clinical practice.

Objective:

-To study how physicians make personalized treatment decisions

Eligibility:

-Healthy adult primary care physicians who are internal (or family) medicine residents.

Design:

  • Participants will complete a screening form.
  • Participants will put on a headset, called a head-mounted display, showing a virtual reality environment.
  • The environment will contain an exam room and the virtual patient.
  • After interacting with the virtual patient, participants will complete a series of survey measures.
  • Participation will last for about 60 minutes. The virtual patient interaction and follow-up questions will be audio taped.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Detailed Description

This study will examine factors related to primary care physicians clinical decision-making. Using a virtual clinical interaction experiment, we aim to better understand physicians decision-making processes and to explore their communication behaviors toward patients in the clinical encounter. Physician participants will enter a virtual exam room where they will be asked to respond to a virtual patient, acting as her primary care physician in a follow-up visit to evaluate her for depression. Various aspects of physician communication in the virtual clinic and self-report measures related to decision-making will be analyzed.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

196

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
    • Maryland
      • Baltimore, Maryland, United States, 21205
        • Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
    • Massachusetts
      • Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02115
        • Harvard School of Public Health
    • Michigan
      • Flint, Michigan, United States
        • Michigan State University
    • New York
      • New York, New York, United States, 10032-3784
        • Columbia University
    • Oregon
      • Eugene, Oregon, United States
        • University of Oregon

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

21 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Internal medicine and family medicine residents will be recruited from diverse national sites for the study, and the virtual reality environment will be brought to them through the use of a head-mounted display and laptop

Description

  • INCLUSION CRITERIA:
  • All physicians will be healthy adult volunteers who are medical residents in the internal medicine specialty.

EXCLUSION CRITERIA:

  1. persons with seizure or vestibular disorders;
  2. persons who are highly prone to motion sickness;
  3. those without normal or normal to corrected vision or hearing;
  4. all current and past employees and contractors of NHGRI; and
  5. persons who have received information about the study purpose or procedure from a past participant.

NHGRI employees are excluded for this protocol because they are likely to have specialized genomic knowledge and may think differently about genomics in the clinical interaction.

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

  • Observational Models: Case-Control
  • Time Perspectives: Cross-Sectional

Cohorts and Interventions

Group / Cohort
Physicians that interact with the black/High SES avatar patien
Medical residents will then be randomized to be exposed to a virtual patient with one of 4 race/SES profiles, this one being a female patient who is Upper-Middle Income and Black/African American.
Physicians that interact with the black/Low SES avatar patient
Medical residents will then be randomized to be exposed to a virtual patient with one of 4 race/SES profiles, this one being a female patient who is low-Middle Income and Black/African American.
Physicians that interact with the white race/high SES avatar
Medical residents will then be randomized to be exposed to a virtual patient with one of 4 race/SES profiles, this one being a female patient who is Upper-Middle Income White andCaucasian.
Physicians that interact with the white race/low SES avatar p
Medical residents will then be randomized to be exposed to a virtual patient with one of 4 race/SES profiles, this one being a female patient who is low Income White and Caucasian.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
To explore how physicians use genetic testing for anticoagulant (warfarin) dosage in patients of different racial/ethnic and SES backgrounds
Time Frame: Outcome measurements are assessed on the same date of the study visit.
To explore how physicians use genetic testing for anticoagulant (warfarin) dosage in patients of different racial /ethnic and SES backgrounds
Outcome measurements are assessed on the same date of the study visit.

Collaborators and Investigators

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

Sponsor

National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Susan J Persky, Ph.D., National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

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

Primary Completion (Actual)

October 8, 2020

Study Completion (Actual)

October 8, 2020

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

April 5, 2014

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

April 5, 2014

First Posted (Estimated)

April 9, 2014

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

June 8, 2026

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 5, 2026

Last Verified

October 17, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 999914075
  • 14-HG-N075

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

IPD Plan Description

We will provide data contingent on special requests form other researchers.

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

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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