December 7, 2018: Cluster Randomized Trials in Health Care Delivery Systems: Lessons from STIC2IT (Niteesh K. Choudhry, MD, PhD)

Speaker

Niteesh K. Choudhry, MD, PhD
Professor, Harvard Medical School
Executive Director, Center for Healthcare Delivery Sciences, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Topic

Cluster Randomized Trials in Health Care Delivery Systems: Lessons from STIC2IT

Keywords

STIC2IT; Pragmatic clinical trial; Learning health system; Cluster randomization; Medication adherence; Telepharmacy; Electronic health record; Stakeholder engagement

Key Points

  • STIC2IT, a pragmatic, cluster-randomized trial, evaluated a telepharmacy intervention to improve medication adherence for people with chronic diseases.
  • Pragmatic aspects of STIC2IT included outcomes assessed using routinely collected data, cluster randomization by physician practice, intention-to-treat analysis, and use of the EHR to collect research data.
  •  While medication adherence did improve in the STIC2IT intervention group, secondary clinical outcomes did not improve. Future trials within health systems should incorporate multilevel engagement across the health system, physicians and staff, and patients.

Discussion Themes

It is important to do ongoing outreach at the health system leadership level to ensure understanding and commitment to the study and keep providers aware of the trial. Study teams should be mindful of the priorities of their partner health system.

Using the EHR for research data required some upfront work building special modules and generating custom reports.

For more information on conducting PCTs in health delivery systems, visit the Living Textbook chapter on engaging stakeholders and building partnerships.

Tags

@Collaboratory1, #pctGR, #HarvardMed, #telepharmacy