Common Sense - Common Health Evaluation: Final Report and Executive Summary

摘要

Medical self-care programs attempt to improve health and reduce medical costs by enriching individual competence in managing common health problems. This research attempted to evaluate the effectiveness of a widely used self-care program through randomized controlled trials in several clinic settings. In the prepaid group practice setting, clinic and referral costs were 10% lower for experimentals than for controls. Resulting savings amounted to $100 per participating family over a 12 month period. Other findings included high program enrollments, significantly increased self-care knowledge, and an apparent lack of program impact on the frequency of in-clinic visits.