Recruiting

Observational Study

Sponsor:

Massachusetts General Hospital

Code:

NCT01968642

Conditions

Inappropriate and Appropriate Transthoracic Echocardiograms

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 0+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Educational Intervention

Study Details

Brief summary:

The utilization of transthoracic echocardiography in the United States has been increasing. This has resulted in increased costs to the healthcare system. In an effort to curb excessive utilization of this technology, the American College of Cardiology created Appropriate Use Criteria to help guide clinicians to use this diagnostic imaging modality more appropriately. The investigators previously showed that an educational intervention can reduce the rate of inappropriate echocardiograms ordered by physicians-in-training. It is unknown if such an intervention would be successful in attending, staff level of physicians. The investigators hypothesize that an educational and feedback intervention will reduce the rate of inappropriate outpatient transthoracic echocardiograms ordered by staff cardiologists and internal medicine physicians.

Conditions

Inappropriate and Appropriate Transthoracic Echocardiograms

Study ID

NCT01968642

Start date

Nov, 2013

Status verified date

Feb, 2014

Completion date

Oct, 2014

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Oct, 2014

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 0+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Cardiology Attending physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Primary care physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Physicians-in-training

Study Design

Enrollment

150 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Health Services Research

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Educational Intervention

Attending physicians in the intervention arm will receive the following multi-faceted educational intervention on transthoracic echocardiogram appropriateness: 1) a lecture at the beginning of the study period, which describes Appropriate USe Criteria (AUC) and highlights common clinical scenarios for which outpatient echocardiograms are ordered, 2) an electronic "pocket cared" via email that provides tips on appropriate ordering of echocardiograms, and 3) an individualized monthly feedback report that categorizes echocardiograms ordered over the preceding month. The feedback report will contain the number of echocardiograms ordered during the month and how many are classified as appropriate, inappropriate, or uncertain based on the 2011 AUC.

no intervention: Control Group

Attending physicians in the control arm will have their echocardiogram orders tracked and classified, but will not receive any feedback on their ordering behavior.

Interventions

Educational Intervention

Primary outcome measure

  • Rate of Inappropriate transthoracic echocardiograms [ Time Frame: 12 months ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Rory B Weiner, MD

617-724-0358rweiner@partners.org

Locations

Massachusetts General Hospital

Recruiting

Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02114

Contacts

Rory B Weiner, MD

617-724-0358rweiner@partners.org

Principal Investigator:

Rory B Weiner, MD

More Information

Sponsor

Massachusetts General Hospital

Last update posted

Feb 11, 2014

Last verified

Feb, 2014

Keywords

  • Transthoracic echocardiograms
  • Appropriate Use Criteria
  • Medical Education

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Massachusetts General Hospital on 2014-02-11.