Computerized Decision Support Tool for Pain Management in Primary Care

MJHS Institute for Innovation in Palliative Care

Status: Completed

Conditions: Chronic Pain

Treatments: Other: Delayed intervention; Other: Early intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Industry

Identifiers

NCT04716621

8408357

Details and patient eligibility

About

Chronic pain is highly prevalent, compromises quality of life, and increases care utilization. Primary care providers are challenged to provide effective treatments, use opioid therapy appropriately, and address the adverse consequences of pain. Technology-enabled decision support tools may provide a means to improve pain management in primary care.

The objective of this study was to evaluate a novel electronic health record (EHR)-based decision support tool-plus-education intervention for pain management in primary care.

Full description

This randomized, wait-list controlled trial evaluated a novel EHR-based system for pain management among patients with chronic pain in six practices of a Federally Qualified Health Center network in New York.

Enrollment: 528 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

1. Treated at the Institute for Family Health
2. Spoke English or Spanish
3. Received one or more prescriptions for an opioid or nonopioid analgesic during the past three months
4. Pain screening at the prior three office visits documented scores >3 on the 0-6 scale (FACES, Hicks et al., 2001).
5. Willingness to complete questionnaires three times
6. A commitment to return to the practice
7. Reachable by phone
8. No evidence of psychopathology or cognitive impairment severe enough to prevent informed consent or completing the survey instruments

Exclusion criteria

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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528 participants in 2 patient groups

Early intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Three sites received the Pain Management Support System for Primary Care (PMSS-PC) integrated into the Electronic Health Record.

Treatment:

Other: Early intervention

Delayed intervention

Other group

Description:

Delayed wait-list control group. Three additional sites received the intervention 6 months after the first arm.

Treatment:

Other: Delayed intervention