CT C-spine Audit and Feedback

University of Massachusetts, Worcester

Status: Completed

Conditions: Emergencies; Trauma; Cervical Spine Injury

Treatments: Behavioral: Audit and Feedback on Individual Practice Patterns

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05711134

STUDY00000533

Details and patient eligibility

About

This is a prospective quality improvement study to assess the effect of using an audit-and-feedback process for emergency providers on utilization of computed tomography of the cervical spine. The objective of this study is to determine whether providing repeated individualized feedback on CT C-spine utilization to emergency providers alters their practice pattern and reduces overutilization. The investigators hypothesize that emergency providers who receive individualized feedback regarding their CT C-spine utilization on a regular basis will alter their practice pattern to reduce overutilization of this imaging study.

Enrollment: 80 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Emergency medicine physician, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant
• Ordered at least 5 CT scans of the cervical spine on adult patients in the two-month pre-intervention period

Exclusion criteria

• Non-emergency providers
• Ordered few than 5 studies in the pre-intervention period

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Double Blind

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80 participants in 3 patient groups

Serial In-Person Feedback

Experimental group

Description:

Providers are given recurring individualized in-person feedback on their practice patterns.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Audit and Feedback on Individual Practice Patterns

In-Person Feedback with Serial Electronic Feedback

Experimental group

Description:

Providers are given one-time individualized in-person feedback on their practice patterns, followed by recurrent individualized electronic feedback.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Audit and Feedback on Individual Practice Patterns

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

Providers are not given any feedback on their practice patterns.