A novel virtual course to teach medical students high-value decision-making

Although a clinician's ability to employ high-value decision-making is influenced by training, many undergraduate medical education programmes lack a formal curriculum in high-value, cost-conscious care. We present a curriculum developed through a cross-institutional collaboration that was used to teach students at two institutions about this topic and can serve as a framework for other institutions to develop similar curricula.

The faculty from the University of Virginia and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine created a 2-week-long online course to teach medical students the fundamentals of high-value care. The course consisted of learning modules, clinical cases, textbook studies, journal clubs and a competitive 'Shark Tank' final project where students proposed a realistic intervention to promote high-value clinical care.

Over two-thirds of students rated the course's quality as excellent or very good. Most found the online modules (92%), assigned textbook readings (89%) and 'Shark Tank' competition (83%) useful. To evaluate the student's ability to apply the concepts learned during the course in clinical contexts, we developed a scoring rubric based on the New World Kirkpatrick Model to evaluate students' proposals. Groups chosen as finalists (as determined by faculty judges) were more likely to be fourth-year students (56%), achieved higher overall scores (p = 0.03), better incorporated cost impact at several levels (patient, hospital and national) (p = 0.001) and discussed both positive and negative impacts on patient safety (p = 0.04).

This course provides a framework for medical schools to use in their teaching of high-value care. Cross-institutional collaboration and online content overcame local barriers such as contextual factors and lack of faculty expertise, allowed for greater flexibility, and enabled focused curricular time to be spent on a capstone project competition. Prior clinical experience amongst medical students may be an enabling factor in promoting application of learning related to high-value care.