JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

There is growing interest in identifying and recruiting research participants from health systems using electronic health records (EHRs). However, few studies have described the practical aspects of recruiting or compared electronic recruitment methods to in person recruitment, particularly across health systems.

Objective:

To describe the process and efficiency of the recruitment process and participant characteristics by strategy.

Methods:

EHR-based eligibility criteria included being an adult patient engaged in outpatient primary or bariatric surgery care at one of 5 health systems in the PaTH Clinical Research Network with >= 2 weights and one height in the EHR in the last 5 years. Recruitment strategies varied by site and included one or more of the following: in person recruitment by study staff from primary care and bariatric surgery outpatient sites, U.S. postal mail recruitment letters, secure e-mail and direct EHR recruitment through secure patient web portals. We used descriptive statistics to evaluate participant characteristics and recruitment efficiency by modality.

Results:

Total number of eligible patients for study participation from 5 health systems was 5,051,187. Of these, 40,048 (0.8%) were invited to enter an EHR-based cohort study and 1,085 were enrolled. Recruitment efficiency was highest for in person recruitment (33%), followed by electronic messaging (2.9%), including e-mail (2.9%) and EHR patient portal messages (2.9%). Overall, 779 (65.7%) were enrolled through electronic messaging, which also had greater rates of recruitment of Black patients compared with the other modalities.

Conclusions:

We recruited a total of 1,085 primary care and bariatric surgery patients using four recruitment modalities. The recruitment efficiency was 2.9% for email and patient portal, with the majority of participants recruited electronically. This study can inform the design of research studies using EHR-based recruitment. Clinical Trial: NA