There are problems in today’s medicine that have been around for decades. Regular ways to go about these issues, such as stricter regulations and financial incentives, are difficult to implement, and they have been proved ineffective in many cases. The science of psychology provides insights into people’s minds that help create a bigger picture of the decision-making process. The technics that use information about the specifics of human behavior are both quite effective and easy to employ, and they can be a part of multifaceted methods to deal with a wide range of problems.
The idea of using a behavioral approach to issues in medicine is based on the fact that doctors and other personnel of hospitals, first of all, are humans. It means that the way they make decisions is not completely logical and is influenced by multiple psychological factors. Behavioral interventions in the work of medical institutions have been proved effective in dealing with problems that traditional approaches fail to solve (Joshi, Ransom, Nash, & Ransom, 2014). Another benefit of these technics is that they are often inexpensive and simple to use (Meeker et al., 2016). This approach is not mutually exclusive with conventional methods, and they can be used together. For instance, improved regulations of antibiotic use might be complemented by the practice of behavioral interventions that are aimed to increase compliance to new standards and further discourage clinicians from inappropriate use of medication.
Finding patterns in behaviors and understanding their nature of them allows developing a set of tools and techniques that target particular aspects of human sociology. This perspective provides a framework that helps find new creative ways to approach old problems. Scientific information and empirical evidence show that behavior-based strategies to deal with common clinical problems work and are justified to use.
References
Joshi, M., Ransom, E. R., Nash, D. B., & Ransom, S. B. (2014). The Healthcare quality book: Vision, strategy, and tools (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: Health Administration Press.
Meeker, D., Linder, J. A., Fox, C. R., Friedberg, M. W., Persell, S. D., Goldstein, N. J., & Doctor, J. N. (2016). Effect of behavioral interventions on inappropriate antibiotic prescribing among primary care practices: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA, 315(6), 562-570.