Rheumatoid Arthritis Paid Clinical Trials in Delaware

Shared decision making is the first overarching principle for the treat to target guidelines for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and has been proposed as a potential mechanism to reduce health disparities, however there is little evidence to inform effective ways to implement this practice in the care of Veterans with RA. The purpose of this project is to evaluate the effectiveness of a multi-component shared decision making intervention on RA disease activity, adherence to RA medications and patient knowledge of RA. The proposed research will contribute to fundamental knowledge about how to effectively foster shared decision making across varied VA rheumatology clinical settings to improve patient disease outcomes and experience; and support clinicians to engage patients in meaningful ways with the ultimate goal to improve health, reduce disability, and eliminate disparities. Read Less

The goal of treating patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is to achieve remission or low disease activity and thereby prevent joint damage, loss of physical function, and disability. Optimal management requires regular assessment of disease activity, with treatment changes made as needed for optimal efficacy. Vectra is a blood serum test that looks at 12 biomarkers and produces a score on a scale of 1 to 100. The Vectra score has been shown to be the strongest predictor of risk for progression of disease. There is opportunity to gain more information about the utility of Vectra in a real-world clinical setting. This study will, therefore, evaluate the utility of Vectra for guiding treatment decisions and improving RA-related outcomes in comparison with usual care, which will not include Vectra testing. This study will enable a direct evaluation of the clinical benefit associated with using Vectra to guide treatment decisions in patients with RA. Read Less