Clinical trial NCT06443385: E-mails to Nudge Safer and Better-Informed Prescribing of Risky Drugs
Official title: E-mails to Nudge Safer and Better-Informed Prescribing of Risky Drugs
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Opioid Prescribing
Prescription Drug Misuse
Keywords: opioids
prescribing
overprescribing
prescription drug monitoring programs
controlled substances
Lead sponsor: Columbia University
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: University of Southern California
name: Bowdoin College
name: Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab
name: Minnesota Management and Budget
name: Minnesota Board of Pharmacy
First posted: 2024-06-05
Enrollment: 7872
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Intervention model description: Clinicians will be assigned at random to one of three arms: PDMP legal mandate e-mails, PDMP clinical benefit emails, or a control group.
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Brief summary: This study will test e-mails to encourage engagement with the Minnesota prescription monitoring program (PMP/PDMP) and will evaluate the effect of these e-mails on PMP/PDMP use and controlled substance prescribing.

Detailed description: Drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed in recent years, and many overdoses continue to involve prescribed medications like opioids and stimulants. At the same time, state prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), which help clinicians prescribe these medications safely, remain underused. In Minnesota, 32% of opioid prescriptions are written by clinicians who do not use the PDMP. In many states, including Minnesota, policymakers have limited tools to raise PDMP use even though it is often required under state law. To address this policy dilemma, this study will test e-mails designed to facilitate PDMP use and evaluate their effects on PDMP use and controlled substance prescribing. This study will include a projected 7,126 physician and physician assistant prescribers of opioids and other controlled substances who lack active PDMP accounts, never query the PDMP, or query the PDMP infrequently relative to their prescribing volume. To generate evidence on clinician motivation for responding to encouragement, the study will randomly vary messaging to focus on legal requirements to use the PDMP vs. clinical benefits of the PDMP.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Minnesota physician or physician assistant
* Controlled substance prescriber not following state requirements to maintain an active PDMP account, or opioid prescriber not searching the PDMP or infrequently searching the PDMP

Exclusion Criteria:

* No e-mail address available

Primary outcomes:
measure: Rate of PDMP Engagement
timeFrame: 2 months
measure: Volume of Potentially Guideline-discordant Opioid Prescribing
timeFrame: 2 months
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: New York
country: United States
facility: Columbia University Irving Medical Center
state: New York
Study officials:
affiliation: Columbia University
name: Adam Sacarny, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University of Southern California
name: Mireille Jacobson, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: Bowdoin College
name: Tatyana Avilova, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: