Using a Problem/Case-Based Learning Program to Increase First and Second Year Medical Students’ Discussions of Health Care Cost Topics

Abstract

Background:The rising costs of health care in the United States are unsustainable and gaps in physician knowledge of how to provide care at a lower cost remains a contributing factor. It has been suggested that learning about health care costs should be incorporated into existing, already overburdened medical school curricula.Objective:To increase the discussion of health care costs among first and second year medical students, we added a component of health care cost education to an existing problem/case-based learning (PBL/CBL) program without adding curricular time.Design:A total of 98 medical students participated in this study throughout the first 2 years of their educational program. Students were charged with researching and discussing health care cost topics as part of their weekly PBL/CBL case conferences. Faculty facilitators tracked each student’s participation in discussions of health care cost topics as well as how often students initiated new conversations about health care cost topics during their case conferences.Results:100% of students engaged in conversations about health care cost topics throughout their first and second year PBL/CBL program. In addition, students increasingly initiated new conversations about health care cost topics as they progressed through their courses from the first to the second year (R2 = 0.887, P < .01).Conclusions:Sensitizing medical students early during their educational program to incorporate health care cost topics into their PBL/CBL case conferences proved an effective means for having them engage in conversations related to health care costs. These results offer a new, time-efficient option for incorporating health care cost topics for schools with PBL/CBL programs.

The effectiveness of the combined problem-based learning (PBL) and case-based learning (CBL) teaching method in the clinical practical teaching of thyroid disease

“…Previous studies have shown that there have been attempts to implement either the PBL or the CBL teaching model in the delivery of various college and university majors, [ 9 , 11 , 13 , 21 ] but few have paid attention to combined PBL–CBL teaching in clinical medicine. Ginzburg et al applied the combined PBL–CBL teaching method to medical students’ discussions about cost-related healthcare topics, showing that PBL combined with CBL is an effective method for engaging in conversations related to public health [ 35 ]. Another study implemented the combined PBL–CBL teaching method in six courses to improve students’ leadership skills without occupying curricular training time [ 36 ].…”

Enhancing 21st century collaboration skills in physical education through the problem-based learning model

“…A study conducted by Ginzburg et al (2019) explored the effectiveness of a hybrid instructional approach combining problem-based learning and case-based learning during students' discussions in the context of public health. The findings revealed that both methods were successful in enhancing conversations on public health issues.…”

Expanding Interdisciplinarity: A bibliometric study of medical education using the MEJ-24

“…Figure 1 illustrates the presence of cited references hailing from journals categorized as Business, Economics, Linguistics, Management, and Sociology. For example, the citing of business, economics and management journals may provide evidence of the increasing complexity of healthcare systems and medical education researchers’ efforts to inform education with topics like leadership [23, 24] and healthcare cost consciousness [25, 26]. Additionally, the inclusion of linguistics may be a nod towards the rise in electronic medical records and the novel language analysis methods used to mine them [27, 28].…”