Electronic Tools to Assist With Identification of and Counseling for Overweight Patients

• Sponsor: Northwestern University (Other)
• Overall Status: Completed
• CT.gov ID: NCT00973661
• Collaborator: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) (U.S. Fed)
• Enrollment: 2,600
• Location: 1
• Arms: 2
• Duration (Months): 6
• Patients Per Site Per Month: 430.1

Study Details

Study Description

Brief Summary

The purpose of this study is to design and assess the impact of an electronic alert and tool set to assist with physician identification and counseling of overweight patients.

Condition or Disease	Intervention/Treatment	Phase
Overweight	Behavioral: Electronic tool set for counseling overweight patients	N/A

Detailed Description

Overweight adults (Body Mass Index [BMI] 25-29.9) are at high risk for developing obesity, but rates of physician identification and counseling of overweight adults are low. Alerts and tools embedded in the electronic medical record have shown promise in enhancing quality improvement efforts.

Our aim is to design and assess the impact of an electronic alert and tool set to assist with identification and counseling of overweight patients with a BMI 27-29.9. Although the category of overweight patients spans BMI 25-29.9, we are including only patients with BMI 27-29.9 in order to focus resources on the most at-risk pre-obese population.

We will develop a tool set including the following components: automatic calculation of BMI, alert for overweight status, counseling template for weight loss goal-setting, linkage to referral options, and access to relevant patient handouts. Physicians in the Northwestern Memorial Faculty Foundation General Internal Medicine (NMFF GIM) practice who consent to participate in the study will be randomized into two groups, with one group of physicians receiving access to these tools. The other group of physicians will continue to provide their usual care for overweight patients. Outcome measures will include the following: tool usage; documentation of overweight in the problem list, encounter diagnosis, or note text; counseling for overweight and documentation of specific behavioral goals. Measures will be obtained via retrospective chart review.

Study Design

• Study Type: Interventional
• Anticipated Enrollment: 2600 participants
• Allocation: Randomized
• Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)
• Primary Purpose: Prevention
• Official Title: Electronic Tools to Assist With Identification of and Counseling for Overweight Patients
• Study Start Date: Mar 1, 2010
• Actual Primary Completion Date: Sep 1, 2010
• Actual Study Completion Date: Sep 1, 2010

Arms and Interventions

Arm	Intervention/Treatment
Experimental: Electronic tools	Behavioral: Electronic tool set for counseling overweight patients; Physicians randomized to the "electronic tools" arm will receive access to a tool set to aid with counseling of overweight patients. This tool set includes the following components: automatic calculation of BMI, alert for overweight status, counseling template for weight loss goal-setting, linkage to referral options, and access to relevant patient handouts. Physicians randomized to the "usual care" arm will not receive access to these tools, and will continue to provide their usual care for overweight patients.
No Intervention: Usual care

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

1. Documented diagnosis of overweight [September 1, 2009-February 28, 2010]

Secondary Outcome Measures

1. Documented counseling for overweight. [September 1, 2009-February 28, 2010]

2. Documentation of specific behavior change goals [September 1, 2009-February 28, 2010]

Eligibility Criteria

Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 Years to 65 Years
• Sexes Eligible for Study: All
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Inclusion Criteria (physicians):

• Consenting physicians from the Northwestern Memorial General Internal Medicine (NMFF GIM) practice

Exclusion Criteria (physicians):

• Study investigators will be excluded from participation (Dr. David Baker, Dr. Joyce Tang)

Inclusion Criteria (patients):

• Adults ages 18-65 seen at the NMFF GIM who are patients of consenting physicians

• Have at least one appointment at the NMFF GIM clinic between 9/1/09-2/28/10

• Body mass index (BMI) 27-29.9 at one or more visits between 9/1/09-2/28/10

Exclusion Criteria (patients):

• Patients without at least one recorded height measurement from any prior visit or without weight information from a visit within the 6 month target window will be excluded due to inability to calculate BMI.

Contacts and Locations

Locations

	Site	City	State	Country	Postal Code
1	Northwestern Memorial Faculty Foundation General Internal Medicine Clinic	Chicago	Illinois	United States	60611

Sponsors and Collaborators

• Northwestern University
• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

Investigators

• Principal Investigator: Joyce W Tang, MD, Northwestern University, Department of General Internal Medicine

Study Documents (Full-Text)

None provided.

More Information

Publications

None provided.

• ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00973661
• Other Study ID Numbers: STU00013264
• First Posted: Sep 9, 2009
• Last Update Posted: Jul 27, 2011
• Last Verified: Jul 1, 2011

• Keywords provided by , ,: Overweight; Diagnosis; Counseling; Medical Records Systems, Computerized
• Additional relevant MeSH terms: Overweight

Study Results

No Results Posted as of Jul 27, 2011