Best Practice Alert for Opioid Prescribing

Best Practice Alert for Post-Surgical Opioid Prescribing At Discharge

The investigators will embed a developed decision support tool into the electronic health record (EHR) to individualize pain therapy in surgical patients after hospital discharge and test its performance in a pragmatic clinical trial.

Preliminary data indicate that current opioid prescription practice after surgery follows a "one size fits all" pattern. In-hospital opioid use prior to discharge serves as a reliable indicator to estimate needs for analgesic medications at home. The investigators will test the hypothesis that the existing tool will enable providers to write need-based prescriptions based on prior-to-discharge opioid use, empower patients to maximize alternatives to opioids (ALTO) therapies at home, while minimizing the need for rescue prescriptions. The investigators will test this tool prospectively in a cohort of ~1,000 providers (primary subjects) and ~39,000 surgical patients (secondary subjects) in four University of Colorado Health (UCHealth) hospitals (clusters to be exposed versus (vs.) non-exposed to the intervention).

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Opioid Use
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: BPA

Detailed Description

Converting knowledge on actual need for opioid pain medications after surgery into tangible benefits can prevent over-prescription of opioids that become available for non-medical use. The objective of this aim is to prescribe pain medications after surgery in a patient-centered fashion. The investigators have used the average amount of opioid medications (in milligram morphine equivalents - MME) taken prior to discharge to inform the clinical decision support tool. This tool will reduce the amount of opioid medications prescribed while maintaining patient post-operative pain control. The calculated "prior to discharge daily MME dose" will be applied to generate a recommendation for the prescription of a cumulative opioid dose that will be displayed when the electronic order entry for the post-discharge pain medication is made in the EHR using a best-practice alert (BPA). In addition, the provider will be prompted to also prescribe non-opioid analgesic medications. This BPA was developed by the Principal Investigator under guidance of the UCHealth System Multidisciplinary Opioid/Pain Management Committee as well as published guidelines.

Based on the relationship between opioids taken prior to discharge and post-discharge opioid intake described above as well as published guidelines for post-discharge prescriptions after surgery will use a tiered approach towards determining the total amount of opioids to be prescribed. Accordingly, the investigators have integrated an algorithm into the BPA such that opioid intake from the EHR only triggers the BPA if the total amount of prescribed opioids exceeds the predicted thresholds.

The opioid prescribing BPA will be assessed over a 44-week period in all eligible patients. At the time of writing the prescription an automatic notification will appear on the care provider's screen that identifies a suggested post-discharge opioid dose within the electronic prescription pad. If approved by the provider, opioid-only prescriptions will be written as suggested. Final dosing decisions and drug choices will remain at the discretion of the treating provider and will be tracked. The investigators will use an all "On" vs. all "Off" configuration to answer the questions if the average amount of total opioids per post-discharge prescription is lower with the BPA active. The investigation will commence with two "Off" periods to assess if reduction in prescribing patterns occurs over time regardless of the intervention. Two "On" periods at the end of the study will determine if any observed changes in prescribing patterns stabilize or continued changes take place.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 21689
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Colorado
    • Aurora, Colorado, United States, 80045
      • University of Colorado

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

Primary subjects:

• Credentialed providers (attending, fellow, and resident physicians, advanced practice providers including nurse practitioners and physician assistants) at each UCH (UC Health) site writing a discharge opioid prescription are eligible to receive the intervention.

Secondary subjects:

• Adult surgical inpatients age 18 and older within the UCHealth system at 4 different hospitals including UCH Metro, UCH Memorial Central, Medical Center of the Rockies, and Poudre Valley Hospital.

Exclusion Criteria:

Primary subjects:

• None

Secondary subjects:

• Less than 18 years of age.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Sequential Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: BPA Off; No best-practice alert (BPA) message is displayed to providers.
Experimental: BPA On; BPA message is displayed to providers based on patient opioid intake as reported in the electronic health record (EHR).	Other: BPA; At the time of writing the prescription an automatic notification will appear on the care provider's screen that identifies a suggested post-discharge opioid dose within the electronic prescription pad. If approved by the provider, opioid-only prescriptions will be written as suggested. Final dosing decisions and drug choices will remain at the discretion of the treating provider.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Opioids Prescribed at Discharge	Prescribed milligram morphine equivalents (MME) discharge opioid dose as recorded in the electronic health record	1 day, on discharge date from hospital

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Number of Participants With Opioid/Non-opioid Combination Medications Prescribed on Day of Discharge	Number of Participants prescribed discharge non-opioid analgesic medications (opioid/non-opioid combination formulations) as recorded in the electronic health record	1 day, on discharge date from hospital
Number of Participants With Opioid Prescriptions After Discharge	Number of participants with opioid prescriptions after discharge as recorded in the electronic health record	"Day of discharge +1" until 28 days after discharge

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Colorado, Denver
• Collaborators: University of Nebraska; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Karsten Bartels, MD, PhD, University of Colorado, Denver

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Bartels K, Mayes LM, Dingmann C, Bullard KJ, Hopfer CJ, Binswanger IA. Opioid Use and Storage Patterns by Patients after Hospital Discharge following Surgery. PLoS One. 2016 Jan 29;11(1):e0147972. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147972. eCollection 2016.
• Chen EY, Marcantonio A, Tornetta P 3rd. Correlation Between 24-Hour Predischarge Opioid Use and Amount of Opioids Prescribed at Hospital Discharge. JAMA Surg. 2018 Feb 21;153(2):e174859. doi: 10.1001/jamasurg.2017.4859. Epub 2018 Feb 21.
• Loudon K, Treweek S, Sullivan F, Donnan P, Thorpe KE, Zwarenstein M. The PRECIS-2 tool: designing trials that are fit for purpose. BMJ. 2015 May 8;350:h2147. doi: 10.1136/bmj.h2147. No abstract available.
• Bartels K, Fernandez-Bustamante A, McWilliams SK, Hopfer CJ, Mikulich-Gilbertson SK. Long-term opioid use after inpatient surgery - A retrospective cohort study. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2018 Jun 1;187:61-65. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2018.02.013. Epub 2018 Mar 27.

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): July 7, 2020
• Primary Completion (Actual): June 8, 2021
• Study Completion (Actual): June 8, 2021

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 22, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 23, 2020
• First Posted (Actual): June 25, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Estimated): March 4, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 29, 2024
• Last Verified: February 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Other Study ID Numbers: 19-3095

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No