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A case-based teaching module combined with audit and feedback to improve the quality of consultations.
J Hosp Med. 2009 Oct 12;4(8):486-489
Authors: Wright R, Howell E, Landis R, Wright S, Kisuule F, Minter Jordan M
BACKGROUND:: Medical consultation is an integral part of hospitalist physicians' practice, yet there is no uniform training to achieve competency in this area during residency. OBJECTIVE:: To improve the quality of medical consultations performed by hospitalists in an academic medical center. DESIGN:: Single group pre-post study design comparing knowledge and behaviors after exposing physicians to an educational intervention. SETTING:: Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, 2006-2007. PARTICIPANTS:: Seven hospitalist faculty members, and 12 internal medicine house-staff members, who served on the medical consultation service during the study period. INTERVENTION:: Participants were exposed to an educational intervention consisting of a case-based module teaching the principles of medical consultation, as well as audit and feedback in which they critically reviewed their most recent written consultations. MEASUREMENTS:: Pretests and posttests were used to assess knowledge. Performance and physician behaviors were assessed following the intervention; consultations done by hospitalists in the months prior to the educational intervention were scored and compared to their postintervention consultations. Wilcoxon signed rank tests and paired t tests were used for the analyses. RESULTS:: Improvement in the median knowledge score (pretest vs. posttest) was significant only for house-staff and not for faculty (10/14 vs. 12/14, P = 0.03 and 11/14 vs. 12/14, P = 0.08, respectively). The quality of consults written by all hospitalists improved after the educational intervention; the mean scores increased from 2.7 to 3.3 (P = 0.0006). CONCLUSIONS:: This curricular intervention including audit and feedback was effective in improving the quality of medical consultations performed by hospitalist physicians. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2009;4:486-489. (c) 2009 Society of Hospital Medicine.
PMID: 19824092 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]