Improvement in treat to target (TTT) for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remained relatively stable over a post-intervention period, according to a recent study. Researchers recruited 11 rheumatology sites (n=636 RA patients) and randomized them to either receive the Learning Collaborative (LC) during Phase I or to a wait-list control group that received the LC intervention during Phase II. The outcome was change in TTT implementation score (0 to 100, 100 is best) from pre- to post-intervention. Analyses examined: 1) the extent that the Phase I intervention teams sustained improvement in TTT; and, 2) predictors of TTT improvement. They found:

• At baseline, mean TTT implementation score was 11% in Phase I intervention sites and 13% in Phase II sites.
• After the intervention, TTT implementation score improved to 57% in the Phase I intervention sites and to 58% in the Phase II sites.
• Intervention sites from Phase I sustained the improvement during the Phase II (52%).
• Predictors of greater TTT improvement included only having rheumatologist providers at the site, academic affiliation of the site, fewer providers per site, and the rheumatologist provider being a trainee.