Clinical trial NCT05585268: Electronic Decision Support for Deprescribing in Patients on Hemodialysis
Official title: Electronic Decision Support for Deprescribing in Patients on Hemodialysis: a Prospective, Controlled, Quality Improvement Study
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: End Stage Renal Disease
Hypertension
Diabete Type 2
Renal Failure Chronic
Anemia
Medication Interaction
Lead sponsor: McGill University Health Centre/Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2022-10-18
Enrollment: 195
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: This quality improvement, parallel group, superiority trial will use two different dialysis sites of the McGill University Health Centre. One unit will act as a control unit. The other will act as an intervention unit. Participants are automatically enrolled in the study and assigned to the intervention when the MedSafer reports are handed to the clinical team at the time of performing a medication reconciliation.
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: Dialysis patients are prescribed an average of 10-12 medications per day, from up to 4-5 different clinicians and have the heaviest pill burden of all chronic conditions given their degree of comorbidity. One strategy for addressing the problem of "medication overload" is through scalable deprescribing interventions. MedSafer is an electronic deprescribing tool that cross-references patient health data with existing deprescribing guidelines and provides a deprescribing report to clinicians to facilitate deprescribing and reducing the burden of polypharmacy. In this study the investigators will test MedSafer on dialysis patients paired with medication reconciliation on an intervention unit compared to a control unit.

Detailed description: Patients on dialysis are prescribed an average of 10-12 medications per day from up to 4-5 different clinicians and amounting to up to 19 pills per day. This patient population has one of the the heaviest pill burdens of all chronic conditions because of therapy to treat comorbidities like disease, hypertension, or diabetes as well as therapy directed at symptoms and drug side effects.

Over 90% of hemodialysis patients take 5 or more medications (polypharmacy), contributing to medication overload. Further, up to 50% of patients on dialysis are prescribed a potentially inappropriate medication (PIM), defined as a medication carrying an increased risk of contributing to an adverse drug event (ADE). Polypharmacy and associated ADEs increase emergency room visits, hospital admissions and the risk of premature death. Furthermore, some medications have little therapeutic benefit and simply add to pill burden.

Studies continue to document the pressing need for deprescribing, medication reconciliation, and medication management programs in dialysis patient populations for the above reasons. While deprescribing guidelines are available to clinicians, they can be difficult to implement as few tools consolidate the recommendations, guidelines are often long lists which require memorization, and they may not explain how to deprescribe and what rebound symptoms to watch out for. The investigators have previously demonstrated that the electronic tool MedSafer, which identifies deprescribing opportunities based on comparing medication lists and comorbidities to a curated ruleset which incorporates publicly available deprescribing guidance and emerging literature, can be a valuable aid in supporting deprescription of PIMs during acute care episodes. MedSafer has also been shown to be of benefit in Long Term Care settings. Dialysis patients, with a large burden of polypharmacy and complex medical histories, coupled with a high risk for adverse drug events leading to hospitalization and death, represent a unique population in which to study a systematic deprescribing intervention as a means of improving quality of care.

Objectives The primary aim is to provide deprescribing reports containing MedSafer recommendations to the clinical team of a hemodialysis unit during the process of Medication reconciliation, to determine if the identification of deprescribing opportunities can improve medication appropriateness as defined by the receipt of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) at the patient level. This intervention will be compared to the efficacy of the intervention with a control dialysis unit that will undergo the standard of care medication reconciliation process with a MedSafer report.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Age 18 years and older
* On outpatient maintenance hemodialysis
* On one of the study units

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patient is hospitalized during the period of the intervention
* Patient is newly initiated on hemodialysis during the intervention

Primary outcomes:
measure: Proportion of patients with one or more PIMs deprescribed
timeFrame: 1 month
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Mean number of total medications
timeFrame: 1 month
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Montreal
country: Canada
facility: McGill University Health Centre
state: Quebec
Study officials:
affiliation: McGill University Health Centre/Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre
name: Emily McDonald, MD MSc
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Marin JG, Beresford L, Lo C, Pai A, Espino-Hernandez G, Beaulieu M. Prescription Patterns in Dialysis Patients: Differences Between Hemodialysis and Peritoneal Dialysis Patients and Opportunities for Deprescription. Can J Kidney Health Dis. 2020 May 1;7:2054358120912652. doi: 10.1177/2054358120912652. eCollection 2020.
citation: Moryousef J, Bortolussi-Courval E, Podymow T, Lee TC, Trinh E, McDonald EG. Deprescribing Opportunities for Hospitalized Patients With End-Stage Kidney Disease on Hemodialysis: A Secondary Analysis of the MedSafer Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. Can J Kidney Health Dis. 2022 May 13;9:20543581221098778. doi: 10.1177/20543581221098778. eCollection 2022.
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citation: Alshamrani M, Almalki A, Qureshi M, Yusuf O, Ismail S. Polypharmacy and Medication-Related Problems in Hemodialysis Patients: A Call for Deprescribing. Pharmacy (Basel). 2018 Jul 25;6(3):76. doi: 10.3390/pharmacy6030076.
citation: Sommer J, Seeling A, Rupprecht H. Adverse Drug Events in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease Associated with Multiple Drug Interactions and Polypharmacy. Drugs Aging. 2020 May;37(5):359-372. doi: 10.1007/s40266-020-00747-0.
citation: Halli-Tierney AD, Scarbrough C, Carroll D. Polypharmacy: Evaluating Risks and Deprescribing. Am Fam Physician. 2019 Jul 1;100(1):32-38.
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citation: McDonald EG, Wu PE, Rashidi B, Wilson MG, Bortolussi-Courval E, Atique A, Battu K, Bonnici A, Elsayed S, Wilson AG, Papillon-Ferland L, Pilote L, Porter S, Murphy J, Ross SB, Shiu J, Tamblyn R, Whitty R, Xu J, Fabreau G, Haddad T, Palepu A, Khan N, McAlister FA, Downar J, Huang AR, MacMillan TE, Cavalcanti RB, Lee TC. The MedSafer Study-Electronic Decision Support for Deprescribing in Hospitalized Older Adults: A Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Intern Med. 2022 Mar 1;182(3):265-273. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2021.7429.
citation: Nadeau ME, Henry JL, Lee TC, Bortolussi-Courval E, Goodine C, McDonald EG. Spread and scale of an electronic deprescribing software to improve health outcomes of older adults living in nursing homes: study protocol for a stepped wedge cluster randomized trial. Trials. 2021 Nov 2;22(1):763. doi: 10.1186/s13063-021-05729-0.
citation: McDonald EG, Wu PE, Rashidi B, Forster AJ, Huang A, Pilote L, Papillon-Ferland L, Bonnici A, Tamblyn R, Whitty R, Porter S, Battu K, Downar J, Lee TC. The MedSafer Study: A Controlled Trial of an Electronic Decision Support Tool for Deprescribing in Acute Care. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2019 Sep;67(9):1843-1850. doi: 10.1111/jgs.16040. Epub 2019 Jun 27.
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