Who will be blinded {17a}
Due to the cluster-randomized trial design with the level of intervention being the clinic, intervention clinic directors, providers, and staff are not blinded to randomization assignment. Participants within the intervention clinic are not blinded, but usual care participants are blinded. Participants’ postcard questionnaires will be anonymous and thus not linked to a specific participant. The source of outcomes data will be the EMR (e.g., medically treated falls, pharmacy data). The study programmers who will extract these data will not be blinded given they have access to the clinic information, but the same code for outcome assessment indexed by mailing date will be run once without clinic identifiers. The data will be coded so that others on the study team will be blinded until the final datasets are completed. The biostatisticians are not blinded but will not have access to follow-up outcome data until after final analytic datasets are complete, and the statistical plan will be finalized prior to receiving any follow-up data.