Optimizing Electronic Alerts for Acute Kidney Injury

This study will enroll hospitalized adults with acute kidney injury (AKI) and randomize them to usual care versus an electronic alert coupled to a "best practices" order set.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) carries a significant, independent risk of mortality among hospitalized patients. Recent studies have demonstrated increased mortality among patients with even small increases in serum creatinine concentration. International guidelines for the treatment of AKI focus on appropriate management of drug dosing, avoiding nephrotoxic exposures, and careful attention to fluid and electrolyte balance. Early nephrologist involvement may also improve outcomes in AKI. Without appropriate provider recognition of AKI, however, none of these measures can be taken, and patient outcomes may suffer. AKI is frequently overlooked by clinicians, but carries a substantial cost, morbidity and mortality burden. The investigators conducted a pilot, randomized trial of electronic alerts for acute kidney injury in 2014. The trial, which randomized 2400 patients with AKI as defined by an increase in creatinine of 0.3mg/dl over 48 hours or 50% over 7 days, found that alerting physicians to the presence of AKI did not improve the course of acute kidney injury, reduce dialysis or death rates. However this study was conducted in a single hospital, and the alert itself did not describe specific actions that a provider could take. In the present proposal, the investigators seek to expand upon their prior study to determine both the modes of alerting that would be most effective and to determine if targeting alerts (such as to patients on medications that may worsen acute kidney injury) will improve effectiveness. This study will be a randomized, controlled trial of an electronic AKI alert system. Using the Kidney Disease: Improve Global Outcomes creatinine criteria, inpatients at several hospitals will be randomized to usual care versus electronic alerting. The primary outcome will be a composite of progression of acute kidney injury, dialysis and death.

A pop-up alert will fire when a provider opens the electronic health record of a patient with AKI until such time as AKI is documented in the problem list, or AKI resolves.

Provider's will receive a "pop-up" alert in the electronic health record until AKI is documented in the problem list or AKI resolves.

Progression of AKI is defined by an increase in KDIGO creatinine stage from that present at the time of randomization. Dialysis is defined by the receipt of hemodialysis, continuous renal replacement therapy or peritoneal dialysis. Isolated ultrafiltration treatments (for the purpose of volume removal) will not be included. Mortality will be determined from hospital administrative records.

Number of participants with AKI duration of <2 days, 2-<days, and 7+ days (Aki duration defined as time in days between AKI onset and AKI cessation during index hospitalization)

Cost of index hospitalization, measured in direct and total costs. Direct costs reflect those associated with direct patient contact involving billable services (for example lab, nursing costs, and supplies). Total costs also include non-billable support services such as medical records, human resources, accounting, support staff, utilities and dietary costs.

Best practices assessed include: Avoidance of nephrotoxins (cessation of order or absence of de novo order of IV contrast agent, aminoglycoside, NSAID, or ACE inhibitor within 24 hours of randomization), fluid administration (administration of fluids within 24 hours of randomization), urinalysis order (with or without microscopy within 24 hours of randomization), documentation of AKI (by ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes during index hospitalization), monitoring of creatinine (at least one serum creatinine measurement occurring within 36 hours of randomization), documentation of urine output (within 24 hours of randomization), renal consult order during index hospitalization. Each metric above is binary. Outcome is reported as a composite best practice outcome representing the proportion of best practices achieved per subject.

Proportion of subjects with chart documentation of AKI by post-discharge ICD-10 codes and by chart adjudication

Inclusion Criteria: Adult ≥ 18 years admitted to a participating study hospital Acute Kidney Injury as defined by KDIGO consensus creatinine criteria (0.3mg/dl increase in serum creatinine over 48 hours or 50% relative increase over 7 days). Exclusion Criteria: ESKD diagnosis code Dialysis order prior to AKI onset Initial creatinine >=4.0mg/dl Prior admission in which patient was randomized. Admission to hospice service or comfort measures only order Kidney transplant within 6 months

Wilson FP, Shashaty M, Testani J, Aqeel I, Borovskiy Y, Ellenberg SS, Feldman HI, Fernandez H, Gitelman Y, Lin J, Negoianu D, Parikh CR, Reese PP, Urbani R, Fuchs B. Automated, electronic alerts for acute kidney injury: a single-blind, parallel-group, randomised controlled trial. Lancet. 2015 May 16;385(9981):1966-74. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60266-5. Epub 2015 Feb 26.

Wilson FP, Martin M, Yamamoto Y, Partridge C, Moreira E, Arora T, Biswas A, Feldman H, Garg AX, Greenberg JH, Hinchcliff M, Latham S, Li F, Lin H, Mansour SG, Moledina DG, Palevsky PM, Parikh CR, Simonov M, Testani J, Ugwuowo U. Electronic health record alerts for acute kidney injury: multicenter, randomized clinical trial. BMJ. 2021 Jan 18;372:m4786. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m4786.

Mutter M, Martin M, Yamamoto Y, Biswas A, Etropolski B, Feldman H, Garg A, Gourlie N, Latham S, Lin H, Palevsky PM, Parikh C, Moreira E, Ugwuowo U, Wilson FP. Electronic Alerts for Acute Kidney Injury Amelioration (ELAIA-1): a completely electronic, multicentre, randomised controlled trial: design and rationale. BMJ Open. 2019 Jun 1;9(5):e025117. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2018-025117.

This link is displayed on the alert and is our clinical trial study website. It contains information about the trial, describes AKI best practices, and provides contact information.