Association of Peer Comparison Emails with Electronic Health Record Documentation of Cancer Stage by Oncologists

Sinaiko AD, Barnett ML, Gaye M, Soriano M, Mulvey T, Hochberg E. JAMA Netw Open. 2020 Oct 1;3(10):e2015935. [CrossRef] [PubMed]

In a randomized pilot study of 56 oncologists at the Massachusetts General Hospital, the authors sent emails with peer comparison data on the proportion of an oncologist’s patients with cancer stage documentation in the machine-readable structured fields in electronic health records (EHRs). Sending these emails were associated with increased documentation of patients’ stage in the EHR by 9.0 percentage points, a relative increase of 69%. The association was observed among oncologists’ new, but not established, patients. The findings suggest interventions using peer comparisons could change physician performance on the EHR among oncologists.