The ABIM Foundation, in partnership with Consumer Reports, has developed and implemented the Choosing Wisely®campaign to encourage clinicians and patients to engage in conversations aimed at avoiding unnecessary tests and treatments. More than 75 medical specialty societies partnering in Choosing Wisely have collectively published nearly 500 evidence-based recommendations that can be used as critical guideposts to inform these critical conversations help create a culture that recognizes more care does not mean better care.
Costs of Care with the help of The University of Chicago has developed four free, web-based, educational, CME-approved, 15-minute modules to support clinicians in their efforts to deliver high-value health care.
For the average American, out-of-pocket costs can be financially burdensome and have led to an increasing recognition that medical care can result in a side effect called “financial harm”. This financial harm can lead to other negative downstream effects, such as patients avoiding future helpful medical tests, procedures, or therapies; an inability to participate in other health programs; or going without basic needs such as food. Watch this module to see what happens when you use a 3-step framework to consider your patients’ financial burdens.
Rising out-of-pocket drug costs can lead to medication underuse, resulting in poor disease management and costly complications. Watch this module to see what happens when your patients experience cost-related medication nonadherence.
Research has shown that inter-professional communication improves patient outcomes in regards to quality and safety. Inter-professional communication can improve the value of health care as well. Watch this module to see how value is improved when clinicians better communicate with one another.
Many of us can recall times where we had to respond to a supervisor who was asking us to do something for a patient that we did not necessarily agree with, or a situation where the supervisor’s motivation was unclear. Watch this module to see what happens when you use a simple framework to engage supervisors and consultants in value conversations.
Interactive Learning Modules from Dell Medical School
Discovering Value-Based Health Care is a set of free interactive learning modules that teach the concepts of value-based health care and high-value care delivery. The program is intended for clinicians at any stage of training or practice and includes free CME credit and certificates of completion. The program was created by a team at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, led by Costs of Care Executive Director Chris Moriates.
We hope that everyone with a stake in making healthcare delivery work better will find this book useful. That being said, we wrote it with a primary audience in mind: the people who spend their days (and nights) caring for patients. At the beginning of the 21st century, healthcare professionals are able to deploy an extraordinary range of medical capabilities. The problem is that sometimes our capabilities stretch beyond what we are able to afford financially, physically, and morally. As the adage goes, just because we can do something does not always mean that we should do something.
This book is not an introduction to healthcare policy. It is not an introduction to healthcare economics. It is not an introduction to healthcare finance. Those books already exist. We are instead focused on value-based care—the idea that healthcare needs reform not only in the halls of government or the suites of executives but in the wards and clinics where care is provided. Value-based care requires that those of us who care for patients optimize healthcare outcomes while also taking direct and specific responsibility for costs and patient experiences.
Drs. Neel Shah and Chris Moriates from our Costs of Care team were two of the founding editors for the “Teachable Moments” series in JAMA Internal Medicine
This article series launched in 2014 and is intended to educate medical trainees about the harms that result from overuse and underuse of health services. The primary author of each article must be a medical trainee. The ongoing series has now published well more than 100 articles, and now includes a rotating editorial fellowship program for internal medicine chief residents.