{"id":9537,"date":"2011-05-28T06:13:33","date_gmt":"2011-05-28T10:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=9537"},"modified":"2015-02-10T21:11:49","modified_gmt":"2015-02-11T02:11:49","slug":"algorithmic-psychiatry-fallacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/28\/algorithmic-psychiatry-fallacy\/","title":{"rendered":"algorithmic psychiatry: the fallacy&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p align=\"justify\">In the last post, I reviewed Drs. Rush and Trivedi&#8217;s studies on the TMAP patients. They were buoyed up by the fact that the clinics using their algorithms [ALGO] outperformed their clinics where the docs were left to their own devices [TAU], even though their reanalysis of the data when they eliminated the psychotic patients and the milder cases wasn&#8217;t very exciting in its own right. But where there&#8217;s an algorithm, can a computer be far behind? In 2003, Dr. Trevidi received an NIMH grant [5 year] to implement the TMAP algorithm in a software system and test it:<\/p>\n<table cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" border=\"0\" align=\"center\">\n<tr>\n<td align=\"center\" colspan=\"5\"><a href=\"http:\/\/projectreporter.nih.gov\/project_info_description.cfm?aid=7189122&#038;icde=8263146\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"grant description...\"><u><strong><font color=\"#200020\">COMPUTERIZED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM FOR DEPRESSION<\/font><\/strong><\/u><\/a>    <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"CENTER\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">PROJECT<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"CENTER\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">PRINCIPLE INVESTIGATOR<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"CENTER\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">YEAR<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"CENTER\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">FUNDING<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"CENTER\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">AMOUNT<\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">1R01MH064062-01A2<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">TRIVEDI, MADHUKAR H<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">2003<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">NIMH<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"right\">$604,135<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">5R01MH064062-02<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">TRIVEDI, MADHUKAR H<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">2004<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">NIMH<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"right\">$698,180<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">5R01MH064062-03<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">TRIVEDI, MADHUKAR H<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">2005<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">NIMH<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"right\">$717,974<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">5R01MH064062-04<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">TRIVEDI, MADHUKAR H<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">2006<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">NIMH<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"right\">$718,293<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign=\"top\">5R01MH064062-05<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">TRIVEDI, MADHUKAR H<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">2007<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"center\">NIMH<\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"right\"><u>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;$605,420<\/u><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td align=\"right\" colspan=\"4\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">TOTAL&nbsp;&nbsp; <br \/>              <\/font><\/strong><\/td>\n<td valign=\"top\" align=\"right\">$3,344,002<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>           <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">As usual, there were a number of lead-up articles [even before the grant]:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">&bull; Trivedi MH, Kern JK, Baker SM, et al: <u><a title=\"abstract\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/15990487\"><strong>Computerized medication algorithms and decision support systems in major psychiatric disorders<\/strong><\/a><\/u>. Journal of Psychiatric Practice 6:237&ndash;246, 2000<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">&bull; Trivedi MH, Kern JK, Voegle T, et al: <strong>Computerized medical algorithms in behavioral health care, in Behavioral Health Care Informatics<\/strong>. Edited by Dewan NA, Lorenzi N, Riley R, Bhattacharya SR. New York, Springer-Verlag, 2001<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">&bull; Trivedi MH, Kern JK, Marcee AK, et al: <u><a title=\"abstract\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/12501817\"><strong>Development and implementation of computerized clinical guidelines: barriers and solutions<\/strong><\/a><\/u>. Methods of Information in Medicine 41:435&ndash;442, 2002<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">&bull; Trivedi MH, Kern JK, et al: <u><a title=\"full text\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/psychservices.psychiatryonline.org\/cgi\/reprint\/55\/8\/879.pdf\"><strong>A Computerized Clinical Decision Support System as a Means of Implementing Depression Guidelines<\/strong><\/a><\/u>. Psychiatric Services 55:879&ndash;885, 2004<\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">&bull; Trivedi MH, Claassen CA, et al: <u><a title=\"full text\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.biomedcentral.com\/content\/supplementary\/1472-6947-9-6-S1.pdf\"><strong>Assessing physicians&#8217; use of treatment algorithms: Project IMPACTS study design and rationale<\/strong><\/a><\/u>. Contemp Clin Trials. 28(2):192-212, 2007           <\/p>\n<ol>\n<div><strong><sup>2.11. Timeline Project IMPACTS was implemented beginning in spring 2003. A project management team was formed and meets bimonthly to address strategic questions related to data fidelity and other study policy matters. A hands-on operations team meets weekly to address ongoing study logistics. Physician recruitment and training for the initial study site took place in July-August 2003, and physician support structures were put in place immediately thereafter. Patient enrollment began in August 2003 and is projected to be complete by October 2006 at an average enrollment of 14 new patients per month. The DSMB began meeting in winter 2004. Twenty months into enrollment, 898 potentially eligible public sector patients being treated for depressive symptoms had been contacted about study enrollment, resulting in 214 enrolled patients. In addition, a total of 705 telephone follow-up assessments have been completed out of a possible 710.<\/sup><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">&bull; Trivedi MH, Daly EJ, Kern JK, et al: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.biomedcentral.com\/1472-6947\/9\/6\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"full text\"><u><strong>Barriers to implementation of a computerized decision support system  for depression: an observational report on lessons learned in &quot;real  world&quot; clinical settings<\/strong><\/u><\/a>. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making, 9:6, 2009     <\/p>\n<ol>\n<div><strong><sup>Abstract<br \/>    <u>Background<\/u>: Despite wide promotion, clinical practice guidelines have had limited effect in changing physician behavior. Effective implementation strategies to date have included: multifaceted interventions involving audit and feedback, local consensus processes, marketing; reminder systems, either manual or computerized; and interactive educational meetings. In addition, there is now growing evidence that contextual factors affecting implementation must be addressed such as organizational support (leadership procedures and resources) for the change and strategies to implement and maintain new systems.<br \/>      <u>Methods<\/u>: To examine the feasibility and effectiveness of implementation of a computerized decision support system for depression (CDSS-D) in routine public mental health care in Texas, fifteen study clinicians (thirteen physicians and two advanced nurse practitioners) participated across five sites, accruing over 300 outpatient visits on 168 patients.<br \/>      <u>Results<\/u>: Issues regarding computer literacy and hardware\/software requirements were identified as initial barriers. Clinicians also reported concerns about negative impact on workflow and the potential need for duplication during the transition from paper to electronic systems of medical record keeping.<br \/>      <u>Conclusion<\/u>: The following narrative report based on observations obtained during the initial testing and use of a CDSS-D in clinical settings further emphasizes the importance of taking into account organizational factors when planning implementation of evidence-based guidelines or decision support within a system.<\/sup><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">Hmm. Did I miss something here? Has this train remained in the station all this time? Did it go by and I missed seeing it? The grant has run out, but there&#8217;s no study, just articles about the study that&#8217;s coming &#8211; until this one, a feasibility study? now some 5 years after patient recruitment has already begun? Odd.    <\/div>\n<p>   <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">Well, there is a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/clinicaltrials.gov\/ct2\/show\/NCT00551083?term=trivedi&#038;rank=10\"><u><strong><font color=\"#400040\">Clinical Trial<\/font><\/strong><\/u><\/a> of CDSS-D [<strong><font color=\"#400040\">Computer Decision Support System for Depression<\/font><\/strong>] registered by Madhukar Trivedi in March 2005 that was completed in June 2006 &#8211; but it&#8217;s for only 60 patients, in a Primary Care setting, and was financed by <strong><font color=\"#990000\">Pfizer<\/font><\/strong>. Finally there&#8217;s an article with results, published in 2009:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">&bull; Kurian BT, Trivedi MH, Grannemann BD, et al: <a title=\"full text\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC2736031\/\"><u><strong>A computerized decision support system for depression in primary care<\/strong><\/u><\/a>. <a title=\"Primary care companion to the Journal of clinical psychiatry.\">Prim Care Companion, J Clin Psychiatry,<\/a>11(4):140-1466, 2009   <\/p>\n<ol>\n<div><strong><sup>Abstract<br \/>  <u>OBJECTIVE<\/u>: In 2004, results from The Texas  Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) showed better clinical outcomes for  patients whose physicians adhered to a paper-and-pencil algorithm  compared to patients who received standard clinical treatment for major  depressive disorder (MDD). However, implementation of and fidelity to  the treatment algorithm among various providers was observed to be  inadequate. A computerized decision support system (CDSS) for the  implementation of the TMAP algorithm for depression has since been  developed to improve fidelity and adherence to the algorithm.<br \/>   <u>METHOD<\/u>: This  was a 2-group, parallel design, clinical trial (one patient group  receiving MDD treatment from physicians using the CDSS and the other  patient group receiving usual care) conducted at 2 separate primary care  clinics in Texas from March 2005 through June 2006. Fifty-five patients  with MDD (DSM-IV criteria) with no significant difference in disease  characteristics were enrolled, 32 of whom were treated by physicians  using CDSS and 23 were treated by physicians using usual care. The  study&#8217;s objective was to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of  implementing a CDSS to assist physicians acutely treating patients with  MDD compared to usual care in primary care. Primary efficacy outcomes  for depression symptom severity were based on the 17-item Hamilton  Depression Rating Scale (HDRS(17)) evaluated by an independent rater.<br \/>   <u>RESULTS<\/u>: Patients  treated by physicians employing CDSS had significantly greater symptom  reduction, based on the HDRS(17), than patients treated with usual care  (P &lt; .001).<br \/>   <u>CONCLUSIONS<\/u>: The CDSS algorithm, utilizing  measurement-based care, was superior to usual care for patients with  MDD in primary care settings. Larger randomized controlled trials are  needed to confirm these findings.<\/sup><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/ol><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">Looks like their CDSS program helped Primary Care Physicians [significant but of questionable relevance] treat MDD. The methodology to arrive at the y-axis they used here was unintelligible to me.  <\/div>\n<div align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/impacts.gif\" \/><\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\">Frankly, while I don&#8217;t doubt that they had trouble getting their physicians to use their CDSS-D computer program, my guess is that the things that shut down Trivedi&#8217;s study were more complex than his article suggests. His study spanned the period when TMAP was under attack and being sued for fraud by Allen Jones and the State of Texas. The whole department was renamed and TMAP was no longer mentioned. John Rush had been targeted by Senator Grassley and left Texas for Singapore. STAR*D had come and gone with its 100+papars before going silent. And Rush had left Trivedi to mop up CO-MED [another dud]. So the publication of this last irrelevant <strong>IMPACTS<\/strong> study joined <strong>CO-MED<\/strong> as the last gasp of the <strong>Age of Algorithms<\/strong> in Texas. I think I&#8217;ll let this digest and put my comments about all of this in a separate post Speaking of &quot;tangled webs&quot;&#8230;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the last post, I reviewed Drs. Rush and Trivedi&#8217;s studies on the TMAP patients. They were buoyed up by the fact that the clinics using their algorithms [ALGO] outperformed their clinics where the docs were left to their own devices [TAU], even though their reanalysis of the data when they eliminated the psychotic patients [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9537"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54223,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9537\/revisions\/54223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}