NCT01303263

A Brief Intervention to Improve Cost-effective Resource Use Among Medicine Housestaff

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 96 (actual)
• Sponsor: Brigham and Women's Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: —
• Healthy volunteers: —

Summary

OBJECTIVE: To test a brief intervention designed to improve the cost-effectiveness of care provided by medicine housestaff for hospitalized patients. HYPOTHESIS: A brief intervention in which medicine residents receive itemized bills for recent patients cared for by them, followed by a discussion on approaches to reducing unnecessary inpatient costs, can result in significant cost reductions without adversely affecting patient outcomes.

Detailed description

We designed a brief educational intervention with two primary objectives: 1) to increase awareness among residents about how their decisions impact the costs of inpatient medical care; and 2) to improve the cost-effectiveness of care provided by residents without adversely affecting patient outcomes. We hypothesized that a brief intervention in which residents receive bills for patients they recently cared for, followed by a discussion on approaches to reducing unnecessary inpatient costs, would reduce costs without adversely affecting patient outcomes.

Conditions

• Graduate Medical Education
• Cost-Effectiveness

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Educational Intervention	45-minute teaching session on healthcare costs, in which each resident reviewed an itemized hospital bill for a patient he/she had cared for, followed by an open-ended discussion about reducing unnecessary costs.

Timeline

• Start date: 2009-09-01
• Primary completion: 2010-12-01
• Completion: 2011-02-01
• First posted: 2011-02-24
• Last updated: 2011-06-22

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States