Women's Health

Impact of a Quality Improvement and Education Initiative on 'Appropriate' Use of Anticoagulant Therapy in Women with Atrial Fibrillation

The goal of this project is to reduce the risk of stroke in women by using a computerized decision support tool for individual patient-level decision-making about oral anticoagulant therapy (OAT) in ambulatory patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (AF).

We propose to study the impact of adding a quality-improvement (QI) intervention to an educational activity (for practice staff and clinicians) using a computerized decision support tool for individual patient-level decision-making about OAT in patients with non-valvular AF. The QI tool will incorporate individual patients' risk factor profiles for ischemic stroke and bleeding. We will accomplish this by performing a cluster randomized clinical trial of an educational activity, with and without the addition of the QI intervention.