Training the Next Generation of Healthcare Providers to Address Overuse and Avoid Low-Value Care

In the previous chapter, we learned about the importance of sustaining and spreading successful de-implementation interventions. One key enabler for this is investment in the next generations of healthcare professionals. Practice patterns relating to low-value care amongst practicing clinicians are derived from training experiences and shaped by clinical learning environments. Several studies demonstrate that physicians who trained in high resource utilisation clinical settings were much more likely to themselves be high users of healthcare resources. Thus, efforts to work upstream and engage clinicians at their earliest stages of training is a critical driver of change to realise a culture of high-value care. This chapter focuses on the changes needed to leverage health professional education to advance high-value care competencies. We will provide an overview of competencies needed to deliver high-value care, summarise the various approaches taken to introduce high-value care concepts formally into training programme curricula, and highlight the importance of addressing elements of the clinical learning environment with a particular focus on faculty role modelling. We will also describe assessment strategies that can support efforts to evaluate learning outcomes related to high-value care. While much of the published literature cited in this chapter is specific to training physicians, the overarching principles and examples have relevance for all health professions’ education related to overuse and high-value care.