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Completed

NCT Number: NCT04298762

The Effect of Peer Comparison Emails on Oncologists' Documentation of Cancer Stage

Documenting cancer stage is the most important determinant of treatment approach and survival for cancer patients. However, oncologists do not routinely document a patient's cancer stage in the structured field in electronic health records. This quality improvement pilot study evaluated the impact of sending an email to physicians at a cancer center of a large academic hospital with individualized data on their rates of cancer stage documentation using a structured field. The investigators assessed patient-level documentation and physician-level rates of staging documentation over 15 months including a three-month pre-period, a six-month pilot phase and a six-month follow-up period. The investigators also estimated staging documentation rates separately for each physician's new versus established patients.

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Key information

Conditions

Oncology Neoplasms

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Massachusetts General Hospital

Boston, Massachusetts, 02114, United States

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: Yes

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

  • Attending physicians who had been at one of three sites of hospital between January - August 2018

Exclusion criteria

  • Physicians treating cancer patients where American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging modules were less clinically relevant
  • Physicians with low clinical volume (<5 patients over 3 months)
  • Physicians without any outpatient visits

Treatment and study plan

No peer comparison email

Other

The comparison group received no email communication on their cancer stage documentation activity.

Peer comparison email

Other

The intervention group received three separate emails with individualized data on their cancer stage documentation activity in the previous 1-3 months. The email described the number and percent of attributed patients for whom cancer stage was documented, and included a figure showing their staging documentation rate compared to their peers.

Primary outcomes

  1. Measuring if a patient's cancer stage was documented in a structured field in the Electronic Health Record on the date of the patient's first ambulatory care visit

    Time frame: 15 months

    Indicator of whether the structured field for cancer stage in the patient's electronic health record (EHR) was populated on the date of the first outpatient encounter that a patient had during the study period (1=yes, 0=no)

Secondary outcomes

  1. Staging documentation rate (monthly)

    Time frame: 15 months

    Percentage of patients whose first outpatient encounter occurred in a given month for whom cancer stage was documented

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH)

Other

Collaborators

  • Massachusetts General Hospital

Registry information

Important dates

Study start
2018
Primary completion
2019
Study completion
2019
First posted
Mar 6, 2020
Registry last updated
Mar 6, 2020

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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