An Email Intervention to Prevent Iatrogenic Malnutrition in the ICU

Mass General Brigham

Status: Completed

Conditions: Malnutrition

Treatments: Other: Feedback/Reminder email.

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02277535

2014P001702

Details and patient eligibility

About

This is a quality improvement research project evaluating if a targeted feedback email to clinicians impacts their nutrition delivery in the ICU.

Full description

This prospective study looks to determine if a targeted email to clinicians taking care of critically ill patients will allow reduce malnutrition in the Intensive Care Units (ICU). Four ICUs will be included: medical ICU (MICU), coronary care unit (CCU) and two surgical ICUs. The investigators will rotate a 2 month period intervention amongst the aforementioned participating ICUs and follow simultaneous cohorts to evaluate the effect of our intervention (email feedback to treating clinicians) on nutrition delivery in the ICU. After the completion of the intervention, there will be a six-month follow-up of nutritional adequacy to assess the durability of changes in behavior.

Enrollment: 197 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Clinicians taking care of patients admitted to the ICU within the past 48hrs
• Clinicians taking care of patients in whom enteral nutrition is prescribed

Exclusion criteria

• Clinicians taking care of patients in whom enteral nutrition is not prescribed.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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197 participants in 2 patient groups

E-mail intervention

Experimental group

Description:

ICU clinicians caring for patients who have not yet been initiated on nutrition 48 hours after ICU admission will receive a reminder email. ICU clinicians caring for patients who accumulate a caloric deficit greater than 4000 calories or 150 g protein deficit will receive a feedback email

Treatment:

Other: Feedback/Reminder email.

No E-mail intervention

No Intervention group

Description:

Nutrition status of patients will be assessed but no reminder or feedback emails will be sent