BRIT2
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Knowledge support to General Practitioners and patients: evaluation of the effectiveness of periodic feedback, decision support during consultations and peer comparisons in multi-arm cluster randomised trial (BRIT2)
IRAS ID
290050
Contact name
Tjeerd van Staa
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
2 years, 6 months, 28 days
Research summary
The Learning Healthcare System approach has been proposed to better integrate research into clinical practice. It involves iterative phases including data analytics, feedback to clinicians and implementation of quality improvement activities by the clinicians. In this project, this approach will be applied to two different clinical areas in general practice, one concerning antibiotic prescribing for common infections and the other concerning treatments for frail elderly. The overall research question will be to evaluate whether the Learning Healthcare System improves prescribing without increasing the risks of complications. The study will be a multi-arm pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial with randomisation of practices to various interventions and also include an observational arm. General practices participating in the trial will be randomised to the following interventions: periodic practice-level feedback using dashboards only, practice + individual prescriber feedback, and (in antibiotic sub-study only) periodic practice + individual feedback+ knowledge support system (KSS). This KSS will consist of a display on the GP’s computer while seeing the ill patient; the GP will need to enter answers to standard questions about the patient’s condition and then presented with information on e.g. patient’s risk of complications due to the infection). We will develop individualised patient leaflets that the GP can provide to patients during consultation after KSS activation. Data from large national data sources will be used to get better understanding of the drivers for heterogeneity in care and for the effectiveness of different treatment strategies (benchmarking). The results will provide the baseline content for the dashboards. This will be followed by analyses of anonymised patient-level data from local participating practices. These data and the dashboard infrastructure will be held in secure Trustworthy Research Environments. The number of practices will be at least 202 in the antibiotic sub-study and at least 100 in the frailty sub-study.
REC name
North East - Newcastle & North Tyneside 2 Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/NE/0103
Date of REC Opinion
4 Jun 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion