Hospitals Cut Costs By Getting Doctors To Stick To Guidelines
From the Wall Street Journal
A hospital group in Delaware was concerned it was spending too much on cardiac monitoring for patients outside of intensive care who didn't need it. So it changed its computer system to encourage doctors to follow American Heart Association guidelines for using the monitors.
The number of patients using the monitors, and the group's daily costs for such monitoring, fell by 70% without any harm to patient care, researchers from Wilmington, Del.-based Christiana Care Health System report in a study in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The effort is part of a push by some hospitals across the nation to cut costs by standardizing care. Although professional bodies such as the AHA publish numerous guidelines advising doctors how best to treat various diseases, many doctors deviate from guidelines, which can lead to overuse of some tests and procedures. Doctors cite various reasons for deviating, from personal preference to institutional custom. Pressure from patients and doctors' desire to avoid getting sued can also be a factor.
Some hospitals are trying to counteract test and procedure overuse by reminding physicians about guidelines and the evidence behind them, either through education and training or more intrusive means, such as changing computer systems to make it harder to avoid guideline recommendations.
The push is backed by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, which has asked 70 professional societies in various medical specialties to identify areas of clinical waste, from overuse of MRIs for lower back pain to imaging scans for uncomplicated headaches.
Read more in our daily News Update...
From the Wall Street Journal
A hospital group in Delaware was concerned it was spending too much on cardiac monitoring for patients outside of intensive care who didn't need it. So it changed its computer system to encourage doctors to follow American Heart Association guidelines for using the monitors.
The number of patients using the monitors, and the group's daily costs for such monitoring, fell by 70% without any harm to patient care, researchers from Wilmington, Del.-based Christiana Care Health System report in a study in JAMA Internal Medicine.
The effort is part of a push by some hospitals across the nation to cut costs by standardizing care. Although professional bodies such as the AHA publish numerous guidelines advising doctors how best to treat various diseases, many doctors deviate from guidelines, which can lead to overuse of some tests and procedures. Doctors cite various reasons for deviating, from personal preference to institutional custom. Pressure from patients and doctors' desire to avoid getting sued can also be a factor.
Some hospitals are trying to counteract test and procedure overuse by reminding physicians about guidelines and the evidence behind them, either through education and training or more intrusive means, such as changing computer systems to make it harder to avoid guideline recommendations.
The push is backed by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation, which has asked 70 professional societies in various medical specialties to identify areas of clinical waste, from overuse of MRIs for lower back pain to imaging scans for uncomplicated headaches.
Read more in our daily News Update...