Pragmatic Trial of Messaging to Providers About Treatment of Hyperlipidemia (PROMPT-LIPID)

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death in most developed countries, including the United States. A key risk factor for CVD is an elevation in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or LDL-C. Based on favorable results from large clinical trials, guidelines support the use of high intensity statin therapy for the reduction of LDL-C in very high risk patients and addition of non-statin therapies including ezetimibe and PCSK9 inhibitors if the LDL-C remains above 70 mg/dL. However, implementation of these guidelines is poor and there remains substantial underuse of evidence-based lipid lowering therapies across healthcare systems.

Real-time alerting to important clinical conditions, when fired in an appropriate and timely manner, can have positive impacts on patient outcomes through increased physician awareness and adherence to best practices. To this end, this study has been designed to evaluate whether automated electronic alerts built into the Epic electronic health record can improve the management of hyperlipidemia among patients of outpatient internal medicine and cardiology practices within the Yale New Haven Health System who are at very high risk for future atherosclerotic CVD (ASCVD) events.

One hundred physicians will undergo cluster randomization to either the alert group or the control (usual care) group. Upon opening the order entry screen of an eligible patient with hyperlipidemia, the alert group will receive an informational alert that informs the provider that the patient has hyperlipidemia and is at very high risk for future ASCVD events and provides ACC/AHA-guideline-directed actionable items, including a link to a hyperlipidemia "order set" to include both diagnostic and therapeutic options.

The primary outcome will be the proportion of patients who have intensification of their lipid lowering therapy (increase in statin dose or addition of ezetimibe or addition of a PCSK9 inhibitor) at 90-days. The secondary outcomes will be achieved LDL-C at 6-months and proportion of patients with LDL-C levels less than 70 mg/dL and less than 55 mg/dL. In an optional extension phase, long-term exploratory outcomes looking at the rate of major cardiovascular cardiac events (MACE), defined as hospitalization for myocardial infarction, stroke, unstable angina, or coronary or peripheral artery revascularization will be evaluated at 2 years.