Using Clinical Alerts to Decrease Inappropriate Medication Prescribing
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01034761. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
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Official title
Using Clinical Alerts in a Computerized Provider Order Entry System to Decrease Inappropriate Medication Prescribing Among Hospitalized Elders
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Introduction: The Beers list identifies medications that should be avoided in persons 65 years or older because they are ineffective, pose an unnecessarily high risk, or a safer alternative is available. In a recent study, we found a high rate of prescribing of Beers list medications to hospitalized patients. At Baystate, 41% of medical patients received at least one Beers list drug classified as "high severity," meaning it carried a high risk for an adverse drug reaction, while 5% received 3 or more. Some Beers drugs have been associated with delirium and falls. When compared to Baystate patients who did not receive a high severity medication, those who did had an increased risk of mortality (7.8% vs. 5.2%), longer length of stay (5.5 days vs. 3.9 days) and higher costs ($11,240 vs. 6243). Specific Aims: 1. Quantify the impact of synchronous electronic alerts on physician prescribing of high-severity Beers' list drugs to hospitalized patients over the age of 65 years. 2. Compare physician reactions to each drug-specific alert Project Description: We will develop a series of clinical alerts in CIS, Baystate's computerized provider order entry system, to reduce the use of potentially inappropriate medications among hospitalized elders. We will randomize providers to electronic alerts or usual care. Whenever a provider randomized to alerts attempts to place an order for a high-risk medication on the Beers list and the intended recipient is over 65 years of age, a synchronous alert (i.e. a "pop-up") will inform the physician about the risks associated with the medication and will propose safer alternatives. We will collect data on physician ordering and patient outcomes comparing the number of Beers list prescriptions from providers receiving electronic alerts to those not receiving alerts. Our anticipated outcome is a decrease in inappropriate prescribing during the period when the electronic alerts are activated. Other potential outcomes include decrease in length of stay and a decrease in falls.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT01034761
- Recruitment status
- Completed
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- Not applicable
- Enrollment
- 719 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 65 Years and older
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Healthy volunteers not accepted
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- Mar 31, 2013
- Primary completion
- May 31, 2013
- Completion
- May 31, 2013
- Last update posted
- Mar 9, 2015
2013
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baystate Medical Center | Springfield | Massachusetts | 01199 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT01034761, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Mar 9, 2015 · Synced Sep 2, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT01034761 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.