The Impact of Charge Displays on Inpatient Laboratory Test Ordering

This is a clinical trial to evaluate the impact of presenting medicare fee data for inpatient laboratory tests in the electronic health record on provider ordering behavior at a tertiary care hospital.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Health Behavior
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Displaying medicare fee data

Detailed Description

This study is a clinical trial to determine the impact on inpatient laboratory test ordering of presenting providers with medicare fee data at the time of order entry. We will randomly assign 60 laboratory tests to an active arm (medicare fee data displayed) or to a control arm (medicare fee data not displayed). The primary outcome will be the change in the ratio of tests ordered per patient day over 12 months by study group (intervention vs. control).

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 98529
• Phase: Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Child; Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Not applicable

Exclusion Criteria:

• Not applicable

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Displaying medicare fee data; The active arm is the intervention group of randomly selected inpatient laboratory tests (about 15 most frequently ordered and about 15 most expensive) that will have medicare fee data displayed in the computerized provider order entry system.	Other: Displaying medicare fee data; Using the computerized order entry system to make medicare fee data for a randomly selected inpatient laboratory tests transparent to providers at the time of order entry.
No Intervention: Control Arm; The control arm is the group of randomly selected inpatient laboratory tests (about 15 most frequently ordered and about 15 most expensive) that will not have medicare fee data displayed.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The ratio of tests ordered per patient-day	Number of tests ordered	12 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The total associated fees of tests ordered per patient-day	Associated costs of test	12 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Pennsylvania
• Investigators: Study Director: Mina Sedrak, MD, University of Pennsylvania

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Sedrak MS, Myers JS, Small DS, Nachamkin I, Ziemba JB, Murray D, Kurtzman GW, Zhu J, Wang W, Mincarelli D, Danoski D, Wells BP, Berns JS, Brennan PJ, Hanson CW, Dine CJ, Patel MS. Effect of a Price Transparency Intervention in the Electronic Health Record on Clinician Ordering of Inpatient Laboratory Tests: The PRICE Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Intern Med. 2017 Jul 1;177(7):939-945. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.1144.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start: April 1, 2015
• Primary Completion (Actual): April 1, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): April 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 30, 2015
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 3, 2015
• First Posted (Estimate): February 4, 2015

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 4, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 1, 2017
• Last Verified: May 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Physician's Practice Patterns; Cost Control; Data Display; Diagnostic Tests, Routine
• Other Study ID Numbers: 821783