UMMS Affiliation
Department of Quantitative Health Sciences
Publication Date
2011-09-09
Document Type
Article
Subjects
Veterans Health; Veterans; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
Disciplines
Biostatistics | Epidemiology | Health Services Research
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) oversees the largest integrated healthcare system in the United States. The feasibility of a large-scale, nationwide, group-randomized implementation trial of VHA outpatient practices has not been reported. We describe the recruitment and enrollment of such a trial testing a clinician-directed, Internet-delivered intervention for improving the care of postmyocardial infarction patients with multiple comorbidities.
METHODS: With a recruitment goal of 200 eligible community-based outpatient clinics, parent VHA facilities (medical centers) were recruited because they oversee their affiliated clinics and the research conducted there. Eligible facilities had at least four VHA-owned and -operated primary care clinics, an affiliated Institutional Review Board (IRB), and no ongoing, potentially overlapping, quality-improvement study. Between December 2003 and December 2005, in two consecutive phases, we used initial and then intensified recruitment strategies.
RESULTS: Overall, 48 of 66 (73%) eligible facilities were recruited. Of the 219 clinics and 957 clinicians associated with the 48 facilities, 168 (78%) clinics and 401 (42%) clinicians participated. The median time from initial facility contact to clinic enrollment was 222 days, which decreased by over one-third from the first to the second recruitment phase (medians: 323 and 195 days, respectively; p < .001), when more structured recruitment with physician recruiters was implemented and a dedicated IRB manager was added to the coordinating center staff.
CONCLUSIONS: Large group-randomized trials benefit from having dedicated physician investigators and IRB personnel involved in recruitment. A large-scale, nationally representative, group-randomized trial of community-based clinics is feasible within the VHA or a similar national healthcare system.
Keywords
UMCCTS funding
Rights and Permissions
© 2011 Funkhouser et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
DOI of Published Version
10.1186/1748-5908-6-105
Source
Implement Sci. 2011 Sep 9;6:105. doi:10.1186/1748-5908-6-105. The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.implementationscience.com/content/6/1/105
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Implementation science : IS
PubMed ID
21906278
Related Resources
Repository Citation
Funkhouser, Ellen M.; Levine, Deborah A.; Gerald, Joe K.; Houston, Thomas K.; Johnson, Nancy K.; Allison, Jeroan J.; and Kiefe, Catarina I., "Recruitment activities for a nationwide, population-based, group-randomized trial: the VA MI-Plus study" (2011). Quantitative Health Sciences Publications and Presentations. 997.
https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/qhs_pp/997
