Clinical Reminders in Test Reports to Improve Guideline Compliance

VA Palo Alto Health Care System

Status: Completed

Conditions: Echocardiography

Treatments: Other: Statement; Other: No Statement

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT01792544

SUIRB-021780

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study examines the impact of adding a statement to the echocardiography report that advises anyone reading the report regarding if and when a follow-up study is recommended.

Enrollment: 1,706 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

All patients undergoing echocardiography where the physician creating the report feels a comment is appropriate regarding when follow-up should or should not occur.

Exclusion criteria

None.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Triple Blind

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1,706 participants in 2 patient groups

Statement

Experimental group

Description:

A statement is added to the echocardiography report describing if and when a follow-up echocardiogram is recommended. The statement may be positive (e.g. follow-up recommended in 6 months) or negative (e.g. no follow-up recommended).

Treatment:

Other: Statement

No Statement

Experimental group

Description:

No statement is added to the echocardiography report

Treatment:

Other: No Statement