Improving Management of Outpatient Actionable Test Results (OutptATR)

Mass General Brigham

Status and phase: Completed; Phase 3

Conditions: Management of Actionable Test Results (ATRs)

Treatments: Other: Actionable Test Result Management/Standardization

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT01385982

2011P000035

1R18HS019603-01 (U.S. AHRQ Grant/Contract)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Clinically significant test results require timely clinician follow-up including the non-urgent clinically significant, or actionable, test results that have received less standardized management and attention. Unfortunately, failure to correctly manage actionable test results is not infrequent and may be associated with important delays in diagnosis and treatment and patient harm. The investigators have designed a safe practice intervention to improve the management of actionable test results for ambulatory patients in a large healthcare system.

Enrollment: 6,000 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Primary care physicians will be enrolled in the study by virtue of being an actively practicing clinician in an PHS ambulatory practice, and having at least one patient with a diagnostic test included in the PHS CCSTR intervention. The patient population will consist of adult patients >17 years of age with diagnostic tests in the affiliated ambulatory practices of PHS. Patients will be recruited into the study by a review of electronic medical record data to identify patients with a diagnostic test specified in the PHS CCSTR intervention.

Exclusion criteria

Participants who do not meet the inclusion/eligibility requirements will be excluded.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: N/A

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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6,000 participants in 1 patient group

Actionable Test Results

Other group

Description:

Creating standardized policies and procedures around actionable test results (ATR) management, and implementing them network-wide: 1. Defining the levels of severity and urgency for clinically significant test results 2. Network-wide policy for test result follow-up by the responsible providers, documentation and escalation processes to assure timely communication. 3. Standardized policies for the time frames and nature of communication of test result alerts. 4. Establish criteria for appropriate ATR management by the responsible provider. 5. Feedback performance including provider, practice and service report cards

Treatment:

Other: Actionable Test Result Management/Standardization