Jan Horsky

Resource utilization of patients with hypochondriacal health anxiety and somatization

Objectives.To examine the resource utilization of patients with high levels of somatization and health-related anxiety. Design.Consecutive patients on randomly chosen days completed a self-report questionnaire assessing somatization and health-related, hypochondriacal anxiety. Their medical care utilization in the year preceding and following completion of the questionnaire was obtained from an automated patient record. The utilization of patients above and below a predetermined threshold on the questionnaire was then compared. Patients and Setting. Eight hundred seventy-six patients attending a primary care clinic in a large, urban, teaching hospital. Outcome Measures. Number of ambulatory physician visits (primary care and specialist), outpatient costs (total, physician services, and laboratory procedures), proportion of patients hospitalized, and proportion of patients receiving emergency care. Results.Patients in the uppermost 14% of the clinic population on somatization and hypochondriacal health anxiety had appreciably and significantly higher utilization in the year preceding and the year following completion of the somatization questionnaire than did the rest of the patients in the clinic. After adjusting for group differences in sociodemographic characteristics and medical comorbidity, significant differences in utilization remained. In the year preceding the assessment of somatization, their adjusted total outpatient costs were

Interface design principles for usable decision support

1,312 (95% CI

Comparison of time spent writing orders on paper with computerized physician order entry.

1154,

Methodological Review: Interface design principles for usable decision support: A targeted review of best practices for clinical prescribing interventions

1481) versus

Complementary methods of system usability evaluation: Surveys and observations during software design and development cycles

954 (95% CI

Productivity, Quality, and Patient Satisfaction: Comparison of Part-time and Full-time Primary Care Physicians

868,

Design of decision support interventions for medication prescribing

1057) for the remainder of the patients and the total number of physician visits was 9.21 (95% CI 7.94, 10.40) versus 6.33 (95% CI 5.87, 6.90). In the year following the assessment of somatization, those above the threshold had adjusted total outpatient costs of

Outcomes of care and resource utilization among patients with knee or shoulder disorders treated by general internists, rheumatologists, or orthopedic surgeons

1,395 (95% CI

Development and validation of a patient satisfaction scale for musculoskeletal care

1243,

Computer-based drug ordering: Evaluation of interaction with a decision-support system

1586) versus