Do Clinical Guidelines Reduce Clinician Dependent Costs?
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Date
2011
Authors
Kosimbei, G. K.
Hanson, K.
English, M.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Health Research Policy and Systems
Abstract
Clinician dependent costs are the costs of care that are under the discretion of the healthcare provider. These
costs include the costs of drugs, tests and investigations, and discretionary outpatient visits and impatient stays.
The purpose of this review was to summarize recent evidence, relevant to both developed and developing
countries on whether evidence based clinical guidelines can change hospitals variable costs which are clinician
dependent, and the degree of financial savings achieved at hospital level. Potential studies for inclusion were
identified using structured searches of Econlit, J-Stor, and Pubmed databases. Two reviewers independently
evaluated retrieved studies for inclusion. The methodological quality of the selected articles was assessed using the
Oxford Centre for Evidence- Based Medicine (CEBM) levels of evidence. The results suggest that 10 of the 11
interventions were successful reducing financial costs. Most of the interventions, either in modeling studies or real
interventions generate significant financial saving, although the former reported higher savings because the studies
assumed 100 percent compliance.
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Citation
Health Research Policy and Systems 2011, 9 :24