Web-Enhanced Guideline Implementation for Post MI CBOC Patients

Overview

To assist busy primary care clinicians in VA Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) in managing complex patients by providing a single, interactive, and personalized source of information regarding applicable guidelines for post-MI patients. Specifically, 1) the investigators will identify barriers to provider adherence to guidelines within VHA clinics; 2) Apply guideline-based performance measures to electronic medical records (CPRS) and associated administrative data; 3) Implement the interactive Internet intervention developed by the NHLBI study, after inclusion of VA-specific components, including performance feedback for CBOC clinicians; and 4) Test hypotheses on the intervention's effectiveness, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness in both the VA and Medicare populations. This will include a randomized controlled trial with the CBOC as a unit of randomization.

Some 7.1 million Americans and an estimated 250,000 Veterans actively using VHA are Myocardial Infarction (MI) survivors. To date, most guideline interventions focus on a single patient condition, but ambulatory post-MI patients are frequently more complex, multiple comorbidities, and conflicting guidelines applicable to them. For example, whereas JNC-6 guidelines for the treatment of hypertension suggest pharmacological treatment at blood pressures above 140/80 mm Hg, to be initiated with diuretics or beta-blockers as first line agents, other guidance suggests that for post-MI patients with diabetes, treatment cut-offs should be lower and ACE-inhibitors may be considered as optimal first-line agents. On October 1, 2002, the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) began a study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood institute (NHLBI) as an RO1 (Kiefe, PI (25%), Weissman, co-PI (20%)) to conduct a randomized trial, MI-plus to increase provider adherence to guidelines for post-MI patients. That NHLBI-funded study targets Medicare beneficiaries and their primary care providers in Alabama. Its primary goal is to develop and test with a randomized controlled trial, an Internet-based multimodal guideline implementation strategy. The investigators propose, herewith, to extend and adapt this study to a nationwide sample of VA post-MI patients and their primary care providers in the VA.