Los Angeles-based USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics researchers found comparing physicians to their peers can improve job satisfaction and performance in quality care.
The study, published June 8 in JAMA Network Open, followed 201 clinicians from 43 clinics between November 2011 and April 2014. The data was analyzed in 2022. Clinicians received monthly emails comparing individual performance to top-performing peers. The study found that peer comparison did not lead to low job satisfaction.
However, researchers note to avoid negative impacts, it is important for clinicians to have control over the behavior being evaluated.
"Our research demonstrates that peer comparison aimed at improving performance can be designed in a manner that safeguards clinician job satisfaction," lead author Jason Doctor, PhD, co-director of the behavioral sciences program at the USC Schaeffer Center and chair of the department of health policy and management, said in a June 8 center news release. "Prior findings to the contrary don't appear tied to peer comparison, but rather clinicians being measured for things they don't have full control over."