A Pragmatic, Stepped-Wedge, Cluster-controlled Clinical Trial of Real-Time Pneumonia Clinical Decision Support
Abstract
Rationale: Care of emergency department (ED) patients with pneumonia can be challenging. Clinical decision support may decrease unnecessary variation and improve care. Objectives: To report patient outcomes and processes of care after deployment of electronic pneumonia clinical decision support (ePNa): a comprehensive, open loop, real-time clinical decision support embedded within the electronic health record. Methods: We conducted a pragmatic, stepped-wedge, cluster-controlled trial with deployment at 2-month intervals in 16 community hospitals. ePNa extracts real-time and historical data to guide diagnosis, risk stratification, microbiological studies, site of care, and antibiotic therapy. We included all adult ED patients with pneumonia over the course of 3 years identified by International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision discharge coding confirmed by chest imaging. Measurements and Main Results: The median age of the 6,848 patients was 67 years (interquartile range, 50-79), and 48% were female; 64.8% were hospital admitted. Unadjusted mortality was 8.6% before and 4.8% after deployment. A mixed effects logistic regression model adjusting for severity of illness with hospital cluster as the random effect showed an adjusted odds ratio of 0.62 (0.49-0.79; P P P Conclusions: ePNa deployment was associated with improved processes of care and lower mortality. Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03358342).
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 6,848 participants or records.
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