Economic Consequences in Clinical Education

Background: Education in the clinical environment has long been central to the training of health practitioners. Recent studies have sought to compare alternate models for providing clinical education. Deciding on which model is superior can be difficult due to potentially conflicting results across a number of outcomes for the many stakeholders involved in this process. Economic evaluations can aid decision making, however, no framework has yet been developed to guide such analyses in this area. Aims: To describe a framework to guide economic evaluations in decision making for clinical education. Outcomes: This paper identifies key stakeholders in the clinical education process, proposes a framework of stakeholder interaction that can form the basis of economic evaluations, identifies key outcomes measures, describes the application of cost minimisation and cost effectiveness evaluations in this area, and proposes the introduction of two new outcome measures (the quality adjusted student educated, and the quality adjusted passing student educated) that may help to resolve conflicts between quantity and quality of clinical education. Use of these tools will aid identification of more efficient approaches to providing clinical education. Conclusion: The incorporation of economic evaluations into the field of clinical education of health professionals is warranted and has the potential to greatly aid identification of efficient models of education.