title: Strategies for changing clinicians' practice patterns. A new perspective.
abstract: How can we persuade clinicians to adopt proven practices? Education, incentives, feedback, social marketing, and various other change strategies have inconsistent and unpredictable effects. We propose a theoretical framework that can provide a reliable basis for selecting effective change strategies. We divide clinicians into 4 categories on the basis of their responses to new information about the effectiveness of clinical strategies. We similarly divide the universe of practice change strategies into knowledge-oriented and behavior-oriented methods. We then show why specific combinations of these strategies are likely to be consistently effective for each of the 4 categories of clinicians.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Management and Policy, School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 48109-2029, USA. leonw@umich.edu
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wyszewianski
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Green
mesh_terms: D004059:Diffusion of Innovation; D004502:Education, Medical, Continuing; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'