In an effort to reduce rising health-care costs, the American College of Physicians (ACP) and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM) have joined forces to offer a free curriculum to teach young doctors to weigh the economics of treatment decisions and benefits of care to patients.
The curriculum is currently available online. American Medical News reports:
It consists of 10, one-hour interactive sessions in which residents and faculty address real patient cases. The groups discuss the cases and analyze the potential pros and cons of different approaches, including the costs and use of evidence-based care, said the [Annals of Internal Medicine] article.
In the last module, residents are asked to undertake a quality improvement project at their institution.
The curriculum was developed by a 22-member committee of ACP and AAIM members and staff, as well as residents and residency program leaders. Leaders at 12 internal medicine residency programs represented on the committee have agreed to incorporate the modules into their training, [Cynthia D. Smith, MD, the ACP’s senior medical associate for content development} said.
“Eventually, we would like to see this content disseminated to all graduate medical education training programs and even to medical schools,” she said.
The physician organizations are working to revise the curriculum based on user feedback. An updated version is expected to be released in September.
Previously: Stanford economist Victor Fuchs: Affordable Care Act “just a start”, Poll explores Americans’ views on health costs and quality of care and Educating physicians on the cost of care
Photo by Julian Claxton Photography, Wellcome Images
