Re-Purposing the Ordering of 'Routine' Laboratory Tests in Hospitalized Medical Patients (RePORT Study)

University of Calgary

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Utilization, Health Care

Treatments: Other: Multimodal Intervention: Patient Engagement; Other: Multimodal Intervention: Audit and Feedback; Other: Multimodal Intervention: Education; Other: Multimodal Intervention: System Changes

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06119464

REB17-1215

Details and patient eligibility

About

Laboratory test overuse occurs when tests are ordered repetitively, without due consideration of impact on clinical status. Repetitive inpatient lab testing often provides limited value for patient outcomes while increasing healthcare costs, patient discomfort, and unnecessary transfusions and prolonging hospitalizations. The research study aims to reduce laboratory test overuse in hospitals through implementation of a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, and multi-faceted intervention bundle that includes audit and feedback reports, clinician education, clinical decision support tool, and patient infographics across 14 hospitals in Alberta.

Full description

Background: Laboratory and Pathology testing contributes to rising health care expenditure. A relatively large percentage (up to 42%) of laboratory testing can be considered wasteful. Redundant testing alone has been estimated to waste up to 5 billion dollars annually in the United States of America. Laboratory over-utilization leads to false positives that promotes further inappropriate testing and procedures, interruption of normal sleep pattern of inpatients, as well as iatrogenic anemia and pain. A Canadian study showed significant hemoglobin reductions as a result of phlebotomy. Studies support the safe reduction of repetitive laboratory testing without negative effects on adverse events, readmission rates, critical care utilization, or mortality.

The aim of this research study is the following:

1. To implement a multimodal intervention bundle containing healthcare provider and patient engagement tools for hospitalized medical inpatients in 14 hospitals across the province of Alberta in Canada using a cluster randomized stepped-wedge design
2. To evaluate the impact of the intervention bundle on laboratory test utilization of six target laboratory tests (complete blood count, electrolytes, creatinine, urea, partial thromboplastin time, and international normalized ratio), costs, and patient safety outcomes.

This intervention bundle will be implemented across all the adult hospital sites in Alberta starting January 2023 and evaluated until October 2024.

Enrollment: 251,817 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• all participants (patients and healthcare providers) within enrolled adult hospitals in Alberta of medical and hospitalist units during study period

Exclusion criteria

• outside of the above-mentioned province
• hospitals not enrolled
• non-medical units (eg. ICU, surgical, pediatric, obstetrical units)

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Crossover Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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251,817 participants in 2 patient groups

Unexposed to intervention (control period)

No Intervention group

Description:

This is the time period of the study where hospital clusters are not receiving the intervention

Exposed to intervention (intervention period)

Experimental group

Description:

This is the time period of the study where hospital clusters are receiving the multimodal intervention.

Treatment:

Other: Multimodal Intervention: System Changes

Other: Multimodal Intervention: Education

Other: Multimodal Intervention: Audit and Feedback

Other: Multimodal Intervention: Patient Engagement