Special article
Effect of medical records' checklists on implementation of periodic health measures

https://doi.org/10.1016/0002-9343(87)90507-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Recent re-evaluation of preventive health care has resulted in more limited and directed guidelines; nonetheless, physician compliance has remained poor. This study assessed whether an inexpensive reminder system of preventive care checklists would improve physician implementation of periodic health measures. Residents in internal medicine were randomly placed into two groups: one received a copy of the appropriate checklist with each patient's medical record; the other did not. After one year, 200 randomly selected records were audited to determine the proportion of recommendations implemented for each patient. Residents who received checklists performed appropriate preventive health measures at a significantly higher rate than those who did not (0.56 ± 0.26 versus 0.39 ± 0.22, p <0.002). The actual use of the checklist to record the results was associated with an even higher rate of compliance compared with instances in which the checklists were provided but not used and instances in which checklists were not received (0.70 ± 0.21 versus 0.44 ± 0.24 and 0.39 ± 0.22, respectively, p <0.002). These data suggest that a physician's use of simple checklists can provide an inexpensive and effective means of improving implementation of periodic health maintenance.

Reference (9)

  • ACS report on the cancer-related health checkup

    CA

    (1980)
  • SpitzerWO

    Report on the task force on the periodic health examination

    Can Med Assoc J

    (1979)
  • FramePS et al.

    A critical review of periodic health screening using specific screening criteria

    J Fam Pract

    (1979)
    FramePS et al.

    A critical review of periodic health screening using specific screening criteria

    J Fam Pract

    (1979)
    FramePS et al.

    A critical review of periodic health screening using specific screening criteria

    J Fam Pract

    (1979)
    FramePS et al.

    A critical review of periodic health screening using specific screening criteria

    J Fam Pract

    (1979)
  • BreslowL et al.

    The lifetime health-monitoring program: a practical approach to preventive medicine

    N Engl J Med

    (1977)
There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (0)

View full text