Leveraging Electronic Health Record Technology and Team Care to Address Medication Adherence: Protocol for a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial

Background: Low medication adherence is a common cause of high blood pressure but is often unrecognized in clinical practice. Electronic data linkages between electronic health records (EHRs) and pharmacies offer the opportunity to identify low medication adherence, which can be used for interventions at the point of care. We developed a multicomponent intervention that uses linked EHR and pharmacy data to automatically identify patients with elevated blood pressure and low medication adherence. The intervention then combines team-based care with EHR-based workflows to address medication nonadherence.

Objective: This study aims to describe the design of the Leveraging EHR Technology and Team Care to Address Medication Adherence (TEAMLET) trial, which tests the effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention that leverages EHR-based data and team-based care on medication adherence among patients with hypertension.

Methods: TEAMLET is a pragmatic, cluster randomized controlled trial in which 10 primary care practices will be randomized 1:1 to the multicomponent intervention or usual care. We will include all patients with hypertension and low medication adherence who are seen at enrolled practices. The primary outcome is medication adherence, as measured by the proportion of days covered, and the secondary outcome is clinic systolic blood pressure. We will also assess intervention implementation, including adoption, acceptability, fidelity, cost, and sustainability.

Results: As of May 2023, we have randomized 10 primary care practices into the study, with 5 practices assigned to each arm of the trial. The enrollment for the study commenced on October 5, 2022, and the trial is currently ongoing. We anticipate patient recruitment to go through the fall of 2023 and the primary outcomes to be assessed in the fall of 2024.

Conclusions: The TEAMLET trial will evaluate the effectiveness of a multicomponent intervention that leverages EHR-based data and team-based care on medication adherence. If successful, the intervention could offer a scalable approach to address inadequate blood pressure control among millions of patients with hypertension.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05349422; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05349422.

International registered report identifier (irrid): DERR1-10.2196/47930.