Philadelphia, July 7, 2014 -- The American College of Physicians (ACP) and MedU have collaborated to create an online High Value Care course for medical students based on a curriculum developed by ACP and the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM).
"Helping medical students know how to evaluate the benefits, harms, and costs of tests and treatment options is an important step in making High Value Care a reality in clinical practice," said Cynthia D. Smith, MD, FACP, a Senior Physician Educator at ACP.
The online course incorporates active learning strategies and enables medical students to learn about High Value Care in a clinical context at a convenient time and place through six modules:
- Defining High Value Care & the Importance of Clinical Reasoning
- Statistics and Clinical Decision-Making
- Preventive Care and Value
- Medications and Value
- On Rounds: Medical Students, Teams, and High Value Care
- Insurance
Modules include short interactive virtual patient cases, brief instructional videos, embedded links so that students can apply principles from the High Value Care modules to other cases, and key teaching points.
The course is available to any school or student with a subscription to any MedU course.
Funding to create the High Value Care course was provided by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, the ABIM Foundation, and AAIM.
About ACP's High Value Care Initiative
ACP's High Value Care
initiative is designed to help doctors and patients understand
the benefits, harms, and costs of tests and treatment options for
common clinical issues so they can pursue care together that
improves health, avoids harms, and eliminates wasteful practices.
ACP defines High Value Care as the delivery of services providing
benefits that make their harms and costs worthwhile. Value is not
merely cost. Some expensive tests and treatments have high value
because they provide high benefit and low harm. Conversely, some
inexpensive tests or treatments have low value because they do not
provide enough benefit to justify even their low costs and might
even be harmful.
About the American College of Physicians
The American College of Physicians is the largest
medical specialty organization and the second-largest physician
group in the United States. ACP members include 137,000 internal
medicine physicians (internists), related subspecialists, and
medical students. Internal medicine physicians are specialists who
apply scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to the diagnosis,
treatment, and compassionate care of adults across the spectrum
from health to complex illness. Follow ACP on Twitter and Facebook.