Rationale and design of the randomized evaluation of an Ambulatory Care Pharmacist-Led Intervention to Optimize Urate Lowering Pathways (RAmP-UP) Study. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • BACKGROUND: Despite the availability of effective therapies, most gout patients achieve suboptimal treatment outcomes. Current best practices suggest gradual dose-escalation of urate lowering therapy and serial serum urate (sUA) measurement to achieve sUA<6.0mg/dl. However, this strategy is not routinely used. Here we present the study design rationale and development for a pharmacist-led intervention to promote sUA goal attainment. METHODS: To overcome barriers in achieving optimal outcomes, we planned and implemented the Randomized Evaluation of an Ambulatory Care Pharmacist-Led Intervention to Optimize Urate Lowering Pathways (RAmP-UP) study. This is a large pragmatic cluster-randomized trial designed to assess a highly automated, pharmacist-led intervention to optimize allopurinol treatment in gout. Ambulatory clinics (n=101) from a large health system were randomized to deliver either the pharmacist-led intervention or usual care to gout patients over the age of 18years newly initiating allopurinol. All participants received educational materials and could opt-out of the study. For intervention sites, pharmacists conducted outreach primarily via an automated telephone interactive voice recognition system. The outreach, guided by a gout care algorithm developed for this study, systematically promoted adherence assessment, facilitated sUA testing, provided education, and adjusted allopurinol dosing. The primary study outcomes are achievement of sUA<6.0mg/dl and treatment adherence determined after one year. With follow-up ongoing, study results will be reported subsequently. CONCLUSION: Ambulatory care pharmacists and automated calling technology represent potentially important, underutilized resources for improving health outcomes for gout patients.

publication date

  • July 20, 2016

Research

keywords

  • Allopurinol
  • Ambulatory Care
  • Gout
  • Gout Suppressants
  • Pharmacists

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC5035615

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 84981719936

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1016/j.cct.2016.07.019

PubMed ID

  • 27449546

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 50