NCT05065502

MIDAS Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of Implementation Strategies to Optimize Use of Medications in VA Clinical Settings

Maintaining Implementation Through Dynamic Adaptations (MIDAS) (QUE 20-025)

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 24 (actual)
• Sponsor: VA Office of Research and Development · Federal
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Scientific advances are constantly leading to better treatments. However, it is quite challenging for healthcare systems, including VA, to ask very busy providers to change the way they practice. The MIDAS QUERI program will help providers improve the way they treat VA patients for three common conditions, using specific strategies to ensure the reliable delivery of these treatments. The first project will focus on reducing potentially inappropriate medication (PIM) use using the VIONE practice, developed in VA. The second project will focus on better use of drugs called direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) for patients with a history of severe blood clots or an abnormal heart rhythm. The third project will focus on increasing the use of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia as the first-line treatment for insomnia instead of sleep medications. The investigators will test two implementation approaches to improve medication use within these topics.

Detailed description

Background The adoption and sustainment of evidence-based practices (EBPs) is a challenge within many healthcare systems, especially in settings that have already strived but failed to achieve longer-term goals. The Veterans Affairs (VA) Maintaining Implementation through Dynamic Adaptations (MIDAS) Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) program was funded as a series of trials to test multi-component implementation strategies to sustain optimal use of three EBPs: 1) a deprescribing approach intended to reduce potentially inappropriate polypharmacy; 2) appropriate dosing and drug selection of direct-acting anticoagulant medications (DOACs); and 3) use of cognitive behavioral therapy as first-line treatment for insomnia before pharmacologic treatment. We describe the design and methods for a harmonized series of cluster-randomized control trials comparing two implementation strategies. Methods For each trial, we will recruit 8-12 clinics (24-36 total). All will have access to a clinical dashboard that flags patients who may benefit from the target EBP at that clinic and provider. For each trial, clinics will be randomized to one of two implementation strategies to improve use of the EBPs: 1) individual-level academic detailing (AD); or 2) AD plus the team-based Learn. Engage. Act. Process. (LEAP) quality improvement (QI) learning program. The primary outcomes will be operationalized across the three trials as a patient-level dichotomous response (yes/no) indicating patients with potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) among those who may benefit from the EBP. This outcome will be computed using month-by-month administrative data. Primary comparison between the two implementation strategies will be analyzed using generalized estimating equations (GEE) with clinic-level monthly percent of PIMs as the dependent variable. Primary comparative endpoint will be at 13-18 months post-baseline. Each trial will also be analyzed independently. Discussion MIDAS QUERI trials will focus on fostering sustained use of EBPs that previously had targeted but incomplete implementation. Our implementation approaches are designed to engage frontline clinicians in a dynamic optimization process that integrates use of actionable clinical dashboard data and making incremental changes, designed to be feasible within busy clinical settings.

Conditions

• Polypharmacy
• Insomnia
• Anticoagulants

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Academic Detailing (AD)	The National Resource Center for Academic Detailing (NaRCAD) describes AD as "an innovative, one-on-one outreach education technique that helps clinicians provide evidence-based care to their patients. Using an accurate, up-to-date synthesis of the best clinical evidence in an engaging format, academic detailers ignite clinician behavior change, ultimately improving patient health. A successful AD visit is highly interactive, always a dialogue, and assesses a clinician's individual needs, beliefs, attitudes, issues, and concerns in order to promote better.\[practice\]."
BEHAVIORAL	LEAP	Learn. Engage. Act. Process (LEAP) program is a structured 6-month core curriculum plus 6 monthly collaborative sessions. The LEAP quality improvement program engages frontline teams in sustained incremental improvements of EBPs over a six-month period, allowing space for busy clinicians to learn and immediately apply fundamental QI skills. LEAP encompasses: 1) a structured, accessible curriculum based on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's (IHI) Model for Improvement and Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles of change; 2) team-based, hands-on learning, and 3) coaching support and a QI network to enhance learning and accountability.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-05-03
• Primary completion: 2024-03-06
• Completion: 2024-05-14
• First posted: 2021-10-04
• Last updated: 2025-10-15
• Results posted: 2025-10-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States