Can Behavioral Economics Help Healthcare?
Sunday, January 10th, 2010The NIH and AHRQ are spending $15M to find out.
Comparative effectiveness research in healthcare, or studies on the relative cost and benefit of specific diagnostics and treatments, is a hot topic. Doing this type of research will empirically determine, for example, if there is any clinical benefit to a more expensive or frequent diagnostic imaging technique.
Doing the research is one thing, getting providers to use it in delivering care is another. And that will be a big problem. To help solve the problem, the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) are offering $15M in grant money to purse clinical trials on Using Behavioral Economics Research for Nudging Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Here is the purpose of the grant as specified in the executive summary:
