Purpose: Value-based care is a strategy to improve healthcare outcomes while minimizing cost. High Value Healthcare (HVC) is the practice that balances the clinical benefits of a given medical intervention with its harms and cost. We sought to educate student learners on this topic during their medical education.
Background: Healthcare costs in the United States are increasing at an unsustainable rate. There was $253 billion spent in 1980 which increased to $2.7 trillion in 2014. Thirty percent of healthcare costs are wasted care expenses. It is essential for medical professionals to have a clear understanding of medical cost and their effects on patients access and compliance with healthcare. Students were previously not taught the skills needed to combat this issue, therefore an educational experience was developed on High Value Care (HVC) utilizing principles from the Choose Wisely initiative.
Methods: Approximately 375 healthcare professional students from Morehouse School of Medicine and Mercer University Health Sciences Center were invited to an educational experience on HVC. Nursing, pharmacy, physician assistant, public health, and medical students participated in a 2-hour interprofessional session that included activities such as a 20-minute lecture-style presentation followed by group case discussions and debrief. Students completed a pretest and posttest survey utilizing a 5 point Likert scale, with 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.
Results: Students showed a significant increase in their knowledge surrounding HVC. Survey responses in being able to define value-based care increased from 3.59 to 4.55 (p< 0.0001). Students ability to correctly identify the largest contributor of healthcare waste as unnecessary services increased from 64.94% to 94.59%. Students reported in the post-survey that, as a result of the session, they will start engaging in HVC conversations with patients and healthcare providers (mean Likert Score = 4.47) and will begin using the Choosing Wisely recommendations when caring for patients (mean Likert Score = 4.42).
Discussions: Interprofessional team-based activities can be useful in educating healthcare professionals in HVC. Once this curriculum is validated, it can be scaled for multiple settings. With knowledge obtained from this experience, healthcare providers will be equipped to manage and treat patients and collaborate with other professionals.
Topics: CREOG & APGO Annual Meeting, 2020, Student, Resident, Faculty, Clerkship Director, Clerkship Coordinator, Patient Care, Systems-Based Practice & Improvement, GME, UME, Quality & Safety, Team-Based Learning,
Whitney Lankford, MD, Morehouse School of Medicine; Khadeja Johnson, MD, FACP; Ngozi Anachebe, MD, PharmD; Daniel Lee, MS2; Sana Malik, MS2
