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A case‐based teaching module combined with audit and feedback to improve the quality of consultations
Author(s) -
Wright Renee,
Howell Eric,
Landis Regina,
Wright Scott,
Kisuule Flora,
Minter Jordan Myechia
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of hospital medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.128
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1553-5606
pISSN - 1553-5592
DOI - 10.1002/jhm.532
Subject(s) - medicine , hospital medicine , audit , intervention (counseling) , family medicine , quality management , medline , nursing , service (business) , management , economy , political science , law , economics
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. © 2009 Society of Hospital Medicine.