COmmuNity-engaged SimULation Training for Blood Pressure Control (CONSULT-BP)

The goal of CONSULT-BP is to train early-stage healthcare providers, including residents and nurse practitioner (NP) students, to mitigate providers' bias, improve communication skills, and enhance providers' ability to develop authentic and meaningful therapeutic alliances with patients. The study setting is an academic safety net hospital that serves a large non-White and poor population. The Investigators hypothesize that patients' outcomes (blood pressure levels) will be lower after the training intervention compared with before training (control) periods.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Hypertension
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: CONSULT-BP Educational Intervention

Detailed Description

CONSULT-BP is an intervention to test a theory-based, 'awareness, exposure and skill-building' approach applied in the safety of a simulation-based learning center, to improve providers' interaction skills with minority and poor patients. The study included community-based participatory research input to develop and implement CONSULT-BP in an academic medical center with a large, safety-net health system which serves minority and poor population.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 118
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Massachusetts
    • Barre, Massachusetts, United States, 01005
      • Barre Family Health Center
    • Uxbridge, Massachusetts, United States, 01569
      • Tri River Family Health Center
    • Worcester, Massachusetts, United States, 01605
      • UMass Memorial Hahnemann Family Health Center
    • Worcester, Massachusetts, United States, 01605
      • UMass Memorial Medical Center -- Benedict Building

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

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

Description

For Healthcare Trainees -

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Practice at a clinical site supported by an EMR to allow clinical data collection for outcome measurement
2. 15-week clinical look-back period
3. No prior completion of the CONSULT-BP intervention

Exclusion Criteria: 1. All 1st year trainees

For Patient Participants -

Inclusion Criteria:

1. English-speaking
2. Non-White racial/ethnic minority or Medicaid recipient (regardless of race/ethnicity)
3. Hypertension identified in the EMR

Exclusion Criteria:

1. Enrolled in hospice.
2. Pregnancy, dementia, schizophrenia, bipolar illness, or other serious medical co-morbidity that would interfere with hypertension self-control

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Sequential Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Other: Healthcare Trainees; Trainees were assigned to receive Other: CONSULT-BP Educational Intervention. Each arm has a pre-intervention (control) period and a post-intervention (exposure) period.

Other: CONSULT-BP Educational Intervention; CONSULT-BP is a two sessions training provided to healthcare trainees over a 5-week period. The first session focused on (1) didactic overview of healthcare disparities, social drivers of health, implicit bias and systemic racism and (2) interactive discussions and patient storytelling videos to raise awareness of the bi-directional role of racial and ethnic identity among clinicians and patients. The second session focused on skill building and included (1) bias mitigation strategies based on the RELATE bias mitigation tool and (2) skill practice using 2 standardized patient simulated clinical encounters focusing on hypertension management challenges.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Blood Pressure	Systolic and diastolic blood pressure of patients treated by the participating clinician trainees as reported in the Electronic Medical Record.	Control period is 6 months before the intervention and intervention period is up to 6 months after the intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
RELATE Checklist, a Standardized Patient Rating Scale for Bias-Mitigating and Patient-Centered Communication	The RELATE (Respect, Empathize, Listen, Ask, Talk, Engage) is a 19-item checklist completed by an informant group of "standardized" patients during a simulated standardized patient encounter to evaluate interaction with the participating clinicians. The RELATE checklist contains 4 factors: Respect (4 items), Empathetic Listening (5 items); Ask and Talk (Inquiry, 6 items), and Engagement in Partnership (4 items). The checklist scores are from 0 to 38, with higher scores reflecting better communication from the perspective of the "standardized" patient.	During CONSULT-BP session 2 clinician training intervention (simulated standardized patient encounter)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Massachusetts, Worcester
• Collaborators: National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jennifer Tjia, MD, MSCE, UMass Medical School

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Tjia J, Pugnaire M, Calista J, Eisdorfer E, Hale J, Terrien J, Valdman O, Potts S, Garcia M, Yazdani M, Puerto G, Okero M, Duodu V, Sabin J. Using Simulation-Based Learning with Standardized Patients (SP) in an Implicit Bias Mitigation Clinician Training Program. J Med Educ Curric Dev. 2023 Jun 5;10:23821205231175033. doi: 10.1177/23821205231175033. eCollection 2023 Jan-Dec.
• Tjia J, Pugnaire M, Calista J, Esparza N, Valdman O, Garcia M, Yazdani M, Hale J, Terrien J, Eisdorfer E, Zolezzi-Wyndham V, Chiriboga G, Rappaport L, Puerto G, Dykhouse E, Potts S, Sifuentes AF, Stanhope S, Allison J, Duodo V, Sabin J. COmmuNity-engaged SimULation Training for Blood Pressure Control (CONSULT-BP): A study protocol. Medicine (Baltimore). 2021 Feb 5;100(5):e23680. doi: 10.1097/MD.0000000000023680.
• Calista J, Esparza N, Fernandez J, Beltran A, Bradshaw J, Casseres A, Duodu S, Duodu V, Fordjour C, Kuffour B, Mensah L, Negron-Cruz L, Pietri C, Pridgen C, Puerto G, Tessler LA, Tucci S, Wood K, Wright S, Zinkus P, Tjia J. Perspectives of Community Partners Involved in an Academic Training to Address Clinicians' Implicit Bias. Prog Community Health Partnersh. 2023;17(2):347-351. doi: 10.1353/cpr.2023.a900215.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): August 13, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 31, 2022
• Study Completion (Actual): January 31, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 12, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 14, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): December 18, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): September 19, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 29, 2025
• Last Verified: August 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Healthcare disparities; Racial Bias
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Vascular Diseases; Cardiovascular Diseases; Behavior; Social Behavior; Prejudice; Social Discrimination; Hypertension; Racism
• Other Study ID Numbers: H00012160; 1R01MD011532 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: Individual level participant data includes protected health information. There is no plan to share these data with 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