Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:Introduction to Health Care and Public Health in the U.S.
Unit:Financing Health Care - Part 2
Lecture:Methods of Controlling Rising Medical Costs
Slide content:Evidence-Based Medicine Systematic Review of Published Research Clinical Practice Guidelines Standard of Care Lower costs End defensive medicine Cookbook medicine? Evaluating Technology 12
Slide notes:Evidence-based medicine, or EBM, involves the review of published research studies in evaluating the value of a treatment. Using the results or evidence of these reviews to design clinical practice guidelines, practitioners can treat patients based on an established standard of care. This has the potential to lower costs, since patients are treated according to a standard based on evidence of the effectiveness of a treatment. It also has the potential to stop the practice of defensive medicine by establishing a standard for care. Some physicians have criticized clinical practice guidelines as cookbook medicine, but the goal of clinical practice guidelines is to establish a benchmark from which a physician can initiate treatment under a particular set of circumstances. It does not prevent a physician from altering the treatment plan in the future, based upon the results of the standard of care. Evidence-based medicine can be used to establish the value of new technology. For example, the additional cost of minimally invasive surgery using the da Vinci robot has been justified by the lower complication rate and decreasing length of stay, thus lowering overall costs of care. By comparing the overall costs of minimally invasive surgery using the da Vinci system, including its complications, against those of standard minimally invasive surgery, evidence can be gathered to support or disprove the cost savings assumption. Health IT Workforce Curriculum Version 4.0 12