Improving blood pressure control through provider education, provider alerts, and patient education: a cluster randomized trial

• HIT Description: Decision support More info...
  
• Purpose of Study: Compare the effect of different elements of a multifactorial intervention on quality of care for hypertensive patients
  
• Years of study: 2004
  
• Study Design: RCT
  
• Outcomes: impact on healthcare effectiveness and quality
  

• Settings: Patients with hypertension and their providers associated with the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System
• Intervention: Eligible patients with uncontrolled hypertension were identified and consented and providers were randomized to receive study interventions consisting of 1) provider education; 2) provider education with an electronic alert; or, 3) provider education, electronic alert and a patient education letter
• Evaluation Method: data obtained from the Mid-South QI Data warehouse (a compilation of administrative and clinic data extracted from VA's ViSTA computer system)
• Description: one-time patient-specific electronic notification sent by pharmacy to prescribing providers for each eligible patient, viewable to the provider when signing onto the computer
• Quality of Care and Patient Safety Outcome: The proportion of patients achieving a systolic blood pressure goal of <140 was greatest in the provider education/alert/patient education group but there was no significant difference between blood pressure control in the provider education vs provider education/alert groups suggesting that the patient education letter was the most influential.