Clinical trial NCT00634608: Integrating Targeted MedlinePlus Health Prescriptions Into Clinic Practice Workflow
Official title: Integrating Targeted MedlinePlus Health Prescriptions Into Clinic Practice Workflow
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Allergic Rhinitis
Asthma
Back Pain
Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy
Bursitis
Depression
Anxiety
Diabetes Mellitus
Esophageal Reflux
HIV Infections
Hyperlipidemia
Hypertension
Insomnia
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Obesity
Osteoporosis (Senile)
Shoulder Pain
Sinusitis
Symptomatic Menopause
Urinary Incontinence
Urinary Tract Infection
Vaginitis
Lead sponsor: University of Missouri-Columbia
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Library of Medicine (NLM)
First posted: 2008-03-13
Enrollment: 224
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL

Brief summary: The specific aim of this proposed project is to implement a standard process for integrating MedlinePlus health information prescriptions into the clinic workflow.

Hypothesis 1: Individuals in the intervention group who receive tailored email health information with provider selected MedlinePlus links and added commentary for patient specific conditions will be more likely to seek information / use MedlinePlus compared with individuals in the control group.

Hypothesis 2: Individuals in the intervention group who receive tailored email health information with provider selected MedlinePlus links and added commentary for patient specific conditions will be more satisfied with the information received compared with individuals in the control group.

Detailed description: Providing patient education in an outpatient practice can be challenging in part due to the variety of patient medical conditions and the quantity of materials needed. Increasingly, electronic resources such as those found on the internet have the potential to provide easily accessible needed information. However, clinicians do not have the time to assemble a list of websites for their patients and even if they did, the quality of information varies greatly and would require close screening. MedlinePlus is a free National Library of Medicine sponsored website that features health information on hundreds of conditions with all information carefully screened for quality standards by expert librarians. We will conduct a pilot study to seamlessly integrate provider-customized MedlinePlus health education prescriptions for specific conditions into the normal clinic workflow to motivate patients to access and expand their use of MedlinePlus to benefit their health. As HIV prevention/education is very important, we will include the HIV clinic as well as a general internal medicine clinic.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* To be included in the study population, patients must also be seen by their physician for one of the 21 target health conditions (Allergic Rhinitis, Asthma, Back Pain, Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy, Bursitis, Depression/Anxiety, Diabetes Mellitus, Esophageal Reflux, HIV, Hyperlipidemia, Hypertension, Insomnia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Obesity, Osteoporosis (senile), Shoulder Pain, Sinusitis, Symptomatic Menopause, Urinary Incontinence, Urinary Tract Infection, Vaginitis) and be willing to provide an email address.
* Patients will be included only once.
* All patients in the intervention and the control group will receive the survey.
* All physicians and staff at the Fairview Clinic and HIV Clinic will be invited to complete the physician or staff survey.

Exclusion Criteria:

* No email address

Primary outcomes:
measure: health information experiences of the patient
timeFrame: approximately one week following clinic appointment
Secondary outcomes:
measure: clinician feedback on the health information prescription process
timeFrame: midpoint and conclusion of the study
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Columbia
country: United States
facility: University of Missouri, Department of Internal Medicine
state: Missouri
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Missouri-Columbia
name: Robert Hodge, MD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Coberly E, Boren SA, Davis JW, McConnell AL, Chitima-Matsiga R, Ge B, Logan RA, Steinmann WC, Hodge RH. Linking clinic patients to Internet-based, condition-specific information prescriptions. J Med Libr Assoc. 2010 Apr;98(2):160-4. doi: 10.3163/1536-5050.98.2.009. No abstract available.