Congratulations, Dr. Clough!
Jeffrey Clough, MD, Duke GIM researcher and member of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, continues to write about quality and patient outcomes. Last August we cited his JAMA Viewpoint article, an overview of CMS’s efforts to transition fee-for-service Medicare into an alternative payment system that rewards high quality and efficient use of resources. This time Dr. Clough, again the lead author, takes the reader to understanding that more care is not necessarily better care. The authors looked at the variation in cardiology outpatient care and saw that higher intensity is not associated with reduced mortality or hospitalizations. Outpatient care is potentially an important target for improvement.
Full citation: Clough JD, Rajkumar R, Crim MT, Ott LS, Desai NR, Conway PH, Maresh S, Kahvecioglu DC, Krumholz HM. Practice-Level Variation in Outpatient Cardiac Care and Association With Outcomes. J Am Heart Assoc. 2016 Feb 23;5(2). pii: e002594. doi: 10.1161/JAHA.115.002594. PubMed PMID: 26908402 [Link] [Full text]
3/13/16 – Altmetric score 16 (tweeted by 24)