Interdependence in decision-making by medical consultants: implications for improving the efficiency of inpatient physician services.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Hospital administrators are seeking to improve efficiency in medical consultation services, yet whether consultants make decisions to provide more or less care is unknown. We examined how medical consultants account for prior consultants' care when determining whether to provide intensive consulting care or sign off in the treatment of complex surgical inpatients. We applied three distinct theoretical frameworks in the interpretation of our results.

Methods

We performed a retrospective cohort study of consultants' care intensity, measured alternately using a dummy variable for providing two or more days consulting (versus one) and a continuous measure of total days consulting, with 100% Medicare claims data from 2007-2010. Our analytic samples included consults fo

SUBMITTER: Wilk AS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6126672 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature