A randomized outpatient trial of a decision-support information technology tool

• HIT Description: Decision support More info...
  
• Purpose of Study: evaluate effect of a decision support information technology tool on quality, resource consumption and patient and provider satisfaction
  
• Years of study: 2002-2004
  
• Study Design: RCT
  
• Outcomes: impact on patient satisfaction, health care effectiveness and quality, efficiency, utilization and costs.
  

• Settings: 2 military ambulatory treatment facilities
• Intervention: patients randomized to the intervention completed a Coupler based on their specific complaint and entered their medical history into the Coupler tool. Providers could enter additional information and received Coupler output outlining diagnosis or treatment options. Controls were not exposed to Couplers.
• Evaluation Method: Chart abstraction, satisfaction surveys, queries of the electronic Composite Healthcare System database to resource data.
• Description: Couplers use structured questions to elicit information from the patient and provider which is linked to a database of medical knowledge that generates patient care recommendations.
• Interoperability: Incorporated into the Department of Defense's second generation computerized medical record.
• Quality of Care and Patient Safety Outcome: There was no significant difference in the number of quality process measures fulfilled for intervention v control patients. There was no difference in patient satisfaction between the groups.
• Changes in healthcare costs: Patients in the Coupler group used more laboratory and pharmacy resources and had overall higher costs of care (not a benefit)