The effectiveness of different types of interventions to reduce low-value care has been insufficiently summarized to allow for translation to practice. This article systematically reviews the literature on the effectiveness of interventions to reduce low-value care and the quality of those studies. We found that multicomponent interventions addressing both patient and clinician roles in overuse have the greatest potential to reduce low-value care. Clinical decision support and performance feedback are promising strategies with a solid evidence base, and provider education yields changes by itself and when paired with other strategies. Further research is needed on the effectiveness of pay-for-performance, insurer restrictions, and risk-sharing contracts to reduce use of low-value care. While the literature reveals important evidence on strategies used to reduce low-value care, meaningful gaps persist. More experimentation, paired with rigorous evaluation and publication, is needed.

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A b s t r a c t Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of an integrated patient-specific electronic clinical reminder system on diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD) care and to assess physician attitudes toward this reminder system. Design:We enrolled 194 primary care physicians caring for 4549 patients with diabetes and 2199 patients with CAD at 20 ambulatory clinics. Clinics were randomized so that physicians received either evidence-based electronic reminders within their patients' electronic medical record or usual care. There were five reminders for diabetes care and four reminders for CAD care.Measurements: The primary outcome was receipt of recommended care for diabetes and CAD. We created a summary outcome to assess the odds of increased compliance with overall diabetes care (based on five measures) and overall CAD care (based on four measures). We surveyed physicians to assess attitudes toward the reminder system.Results: Baseline adherence rates to all quality measures were low. While electronic reminders increased the odds of recommended diabetes care (odds ratio [OR] 1.30, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.01-1.67) and CAD (OR 1.25, 95% CI 1.01-1.55), the impact of individual reminders was variable. A total of three of nine reminders effectively increased rates of recommended care for diabetes or CAD. The majority of physicians (76%) thought that reminders improved quality of care.Conclusion: An integrated electronic reminder system resulted in variable improvement in care for diabetes and CAD. These improvements were often limited and quality gaps persist.

Background Screening reduces colorectal cancer mortality, but effective screening tests remain underused. Systematic reminders to patients and physicians could increase screening rates. Methods We conducted a randomized controlled trial of patient and physician reminders in 11 ambulatory health centers. Participants included 21,860 patients ages 50 to 80 overdue for colorectal cancer screening and 110 primary care physicians. Patients were randomly assigned to receive mailings containing an educational pamphlet, fecal-occult-blood test kit, and instructions for direct scheduling of flexible sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy. Physicians were randomly assigned to receive electronic reminders during office visits with patients overdue for screening. The primary outcome was receipt of fecal-occult-blood testing, flexible sigmoidoscopy, or colonoscopy over 15 months, and the secondary outcome was detection of colorectal adenomas. Results Screening rates were higher for patients who received mailings compared to those who did not (44.0% vs. 38.1%, p<0.001). The effect increased with age: +3.7% for ages 50-59; +7.3% for ages 60-69; and +10.1% for ages 70-80 (p=0.01 for trend). Screening rates were similar among patients of physicians receiving electronic reminders and the control group (41.9% vs. 40.2%, p=0.47). However, electronic reminders tended to increase screening rates among patients with 3 or more primary care visits (59.5% vs. 52.7%, p=0.07). Detection of adenomas tended to increase with patient mailings (5.7% vs. 5.2%, p=0.10) and physician reminders (6.0% versus 4.9%, p=0.09). Conclusions Mailed reminders to patients are an effective tool to promote colorectal cancer screening, and electronic reminders to physicians may increase screening among adults who more frequently use primary care. (ClinicalTrials.gov ID number NCT00355004)

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IMPORTANCE Financial incentives to physicians or patients are increasingly used, but their effectiveness is not well established. OBJECTIVE To determine whether physician financial incentives, patient incentives, or shared physician and patient incentives are more effective than control in reducing levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) among patients with high cardiovascular risk. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Four-group, multicenter, cluster randomized clinical trial with a 12-month intervention conducted from 2011 to 2014 in 3 primary care practices in the northeastern United States. Three hundred forty eligible primary care physicians (PCPs) were enrolled from a pool of 421. Of 25 627 potentially eligible patients of those PCPs, 1503 enrolled. Patients aged 18 to 80 years were eligible if they had a 10-year Framingham Risk Score (FRS) of 20% or greater, had coronary artery disease equivalents with LDL-C levels of 120 mg/dL or greater, or had an FRS of 10% to 20% with LDL-C levels of 140 mg/dL or greater. Investigators were blinded to study group, but participants were not. INTERVENTIONS Primary care physicians were randomly assigned to control, physician incentives, patient incentives, or shared physician-patient incentives. Physicians in the physician incentives group were eligible to receive up to $1024 per enrolled patient meeting LDL-C goals. Patients in the patient incentives group were eligible for the same amount, distributed through daily lotteries tied to medication adherence. Physicians and patients in the shared incentives group shared these incentives. Physicians and patients in the control group received no incentives tied to outcomes, but all patient participants received up to $355 each for trial participation. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Change in LDL-C level at 12 months. RESULTS Only patients in the shared physician-patient incentives group achieved reductions in LDL-C levels statistically different from those in the control group (8.5 mg/dL; 95% CI, 3.8–13.3; P = .002). For comparison of all 4 groups, P < .001. Low-Density LipoproteinCholesterol LevelIncentives Group SharedPhysicianPatientControlMean reduction (95% CI), mg/dL33.6 (30.1–37.1)27.9 (24.9–31.0)25.1 (21.6–28.5)25.1 (21.7–28.5)Baseline, mg/dL160.1159.9160.6161.512 Months, mg/dL126.4132135.5136.4 CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In primary care practices, shared financial incentives for physicians and patients, but not incentives to physicians or patients alone, resulted in a statistically significant difference in reduction of LDL-C levels at 12 months. This reduction was modest, however, and further information is needed to understand whether this approach represents good value. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT01346189

Novel approaches to care delivery that leverage clinical and community resources could improve body mass index (BMI) and family-centered outcomes.OBJECTIVE To examine the extent to which 2 clinical-community interventions improved child BMI z score and health-related quality of life, as well as parental resource empowerment in the Connect for Health Trial. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSThis 2-arm, blinded, randomized clinical trial was conducted from June 2014 through March 2016, with measures at baseline and 1 year after randomization. This intent-to-treat analysis included 721 children ages 2 to 12 years with BMI in the 85th or greater percentile from 6 primary care practices in Massachusetts.INTERVENTIONS Children were randomized to 1 of 2 arms: (1) enhanced primary care (eg, flagging of children with BMI Ն 85th percentile, clinical decision support tools for pediatric weight management, parent educational materials, a Neighborhood Resource Guide, and monthly text messages) or (2) enhanced primary care plus contextually tailored, individual health coaching (twice-weekly text messages and telephone or video contacts every other month) to support behavior change and linkage of families to neighborhood resources. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESOne-year changes in age-and sex-specific BMI z score, child health-related quality of life measured by the Pediatric Quality of Life 4.0, and parental resource empowerment. RESULTS At1year,weobtainedBMIzscoresfrom664children(92%)andfamily-centeredoutcomes from 657 parents (91%). The baseline mean (SD) age was 8.0 (3.0) years; 35% were white (n = 252), 33.3% were black (n = 240), 21.8% were Hispanic (n = 157), and 9.9% were of another race/ethnicity (n = 71). In the enhanced primary care group, adjusted mean (SD) BMI z score was 1.91 (0.56) at baselineand1.85(0.58)at1year,animprovementof−0.06BMIzscoreunits(95%CI,−0.10to−0.02) from baseline to 1 year. In the enhanced primary care plus coaching group, the adjusted mean (SD) BMI z score was 1.87 (0.56) at baseline and 1.79 (0.58) at 1 year, an improvement of −0.09 BMI z score units (95% CI, −0.13 to −0.05). However, there was no significant difference between the 2 intervention arms (difference, −0.02; 95% CI, −0.08 to 0.03; P = .39). Both intervention arms led to improved parental resource empowerment: 0.29 units (95% CI, 0.22 to 0.35) higher in the enhanced primary care group and 0.22 units (95% CI, 0.15 to 0.28) higher in the enhanced primary care plus coaching group. Parents in the enhanced primary care plus coaching group, but not in the enhanced care alone group, reported improvements in their child's health-related quality of life (1.53 units; 95% CI, 0.51 to 2.56). However, there were no significant differences between the intervention arms in either parental resource empowerment (0.07 units; 95% CI, −0.02 to 0.16) or child health-related quality of life (0.89 units; 95% CI, −0.56 to 2.33). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCETwo interventions that included a package of high-quality clinical care for obesity and linkages to communit...