Reducing Imaging Utilization in Primary Care Through Implementation of a Peer Comparison Dashboard
- PDF / 679,214 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 58 Downloads / 139 Views
Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; 2Duke Primary Care, Durham, NC, USA.
BACKGROUND: High clinical variation has been linked to decreased quality of care, increased costs, and decreased patient satisfaction. We present the implementation and analysis of a peer comparison intervention to reduce clinical variation within a large primary care network. OBJECTIVE: Evaluate existing variation in radiology ordering within a primary care network and determine whether peer comparison feedback reduces variation or changes practice patterns. DESIGN: Radiology ordering data was analyzed to evaluate baseline variation in imaging rates. A utilization dashboard was shared monthly with providers for a year, and imaging rates pre- and post-intervention were retrospectively analyzed. PARTICIPANTS: Providers within the primary care network spanning 1,358,644 outpatient encounters and 159 providers over a 3-year period. INTERVENTIONS: The inclusion of radiology utilization data as part of a provider’s monthly quality and productivity dashboards. This information allows providers to compare their practice patterns with those of their colleagues. MAIN MEASURES: We measured provider imaging rates, stratified by modality, as well as order variation over time. KEY RESULTS: We observed significant variation in imaging rates among providers in the network, with the top decile ordering an average of 4.2 times more than the lowest decile in the two years prior to intervention. Provider experience and training were not significantly associated with imaging utilization. In the first year after sharing utilization data with providers, we saw a 17.3% decrease in median imaging rate (p < 0.001) and a 21.4% reduction in provider variation between top and bottom deciles. Median ordering rate for more costly cross-sectional imaging, including CT, MRI, and nuclear medicine studies, decreased by 30.4% (p < 0.001), 20.2% (p = 0.008), and 41.8% (p = 0.002), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Peer comparison feedback can shape provider imaging behavior even in the absence of targets or financial incentives. Peer comparison is a low-touch,
David J. Halpern and Adrian Clark-Randall are co-first authors. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-020-06164-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Received May 9, 2020 Accepted August 14, 2020
low-cost intervention for influencing provider ordering and may have applicability in other clinical areas. J Gen Intern Med DOI: 10.1007/s11606-020-06164-8 © Society of General Internal Medicine 2020
INTRODUCTION
As numerous payers transition from fee-for-service to valuebased-care models, healthcare systems across the USA are striving to identify ways to improve quality while simultaneously improving efficiency and reducing costs. One opportunity is to uncover and reduce unwanted variation, defined as “medical practice variation across regions or provider groups…that is not explained on the basis of illness, patient risk factors or p
Data Loading...
