The investigators will leverage increasingly available technologies to impart a Universal Medication Schedule (UMS) in primary care to help patients living with diabetes safely use and adhere to complex drug regimens. The UMS standardizes the prescribing and dispensing of medicine by using health literacy principles and more explicit times to describe when to take medicine (morning, noon, evening, bedtime). This eliminates variability found in the way prescriptions are written by physicians and transcribed by pharmacists onto drug bottle labels. The proposed intervention will standardize prescribing within an electronic health record (EHR) so all medication orders include UMS prescription instructions ('sigs') and patients receive a medication information sheet with their after-visit summaries. Additionally, to help patients remember when to take prescribed medicines we will link unidirectional short message service (SMS) text reminders to the EHR, delivering medication reminders to patients around UMS intervals. 1. Test the effectiveness of the UMS, and UMS + SMS text reminder strategies compared to usual care. 2. Determine if the effects of these UMS strategies vary by patients' literacy skills and language. 3. Using mixed methods, evaluate the fidelity of the two strategies and explore patient, staff, physician, and health system factors influencing the interventions. 4. Assess the costs required to deliver either intervention from a health system perspective.
The investigators will leverage increasingly available technologies to impart a Universal Medication Schedule (UMS) in primary care to help patients living with diabetes safely use and adhere to complex drug regimens. The UMS standardizes the prescribing and dispensing of medicine by using health literacy principles and more explicit times to describe when to take medicine (morning, noon, evening, bedtime). This eliminates variability found in the way prescriptions are written by physicians and transcribed by pharmacists onto drug bottle labels. The proposed intervention will standardize prescribing within an electronic health record (EHR) so all medication orders include UMS prescription instructions ('sigs') and patients receive a medication information sheet with their after-visit summaries. Additionally, to help patients remember when to take prescribed medicines we will link unidirectional short message service (SMS) text reminders to the EHR, delivering medication reminders to patients around UMS intervals. The investigators will conduct a 3-arm, multi-site trial to test the effectiveness of the UMS, and UMS + SMS text reminder strategies compared to usual care. The investigators will enroll a total of 900 English and Spanish-speaking patients with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes mellitus. Enrolled patients will complete follow-up interviews 3 and 6 months following their baseline interview. The aims of the investigation are to: 1. Test the effectiveness of the UMS, and UMS + SMS text reminder strategies compared to usual care. 2. Determine if the effects of these UMS strategies vary by patients' literacy skills and language. 3. Using mixed methods, evaluate the fidelity of the two strategies and explore patient, staff, physician, and health system factors influencing the interventions. 4. Assess the costs required to deliver either intervention from a health system perspective.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
767
Patients of providers randomized to the UMS arm will receive study-related educational tools at their primary care visit to support the understanding, regimen consolidation, and use of prescriptions.
Patients will receive daily text message reminders about when to take medicines based on UMS intervals.
Northwestern University
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
New York, New York, United States
Medication Adherence: Pill Count
Adherence will be measured for each prescription medication using an objective pill count of the number of pills within each prescription bottle. The proportion of pills taken over pills prescribed (PT/PP) will be calculated for each medication at baseline and 6Month. Pills taken will be calculated by subtracting the number of pills from the total quantity prescribed. Pills prescribed will be calculated by multiplying the number of pills prescribed each day by the number of days since the medication was filled. A proportion of pills taken over pills prescribed (PT/PP) of 80% or more is considered adherent.
Time frame: 6 months after baseline
Medication Adherence: 24-hour Recall
Adherence will be measured for each prescription medication using self-report of how many pills and how often each medicine was taken over the last 24 hours. Patients are asked to specify the amount taken (i.e. dose) and when taken (to determine frequency and interval between doses). A patient is considered adherent on a specific medication if they answered all correctly: 1.dose, 2.frequency, 3.interval between doses
Time frame: 6 months after baseline
Medication Adherence: ASK-12
Adherence will be measured by the ASK-12 Adherence Barrier Survey, a subjective assessment of general adherence behaviors and barriers to treatment adherence. The ASK-12 is scored by summing the selected responses (with scores ranging from 12 to 60) with higher scores indicating greater barriers to adherence.
Time frame: 6 months after baseline
Treatment Knowledge
Identification of drug purpose
Time frame: 6 months after baseline
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