What We Do
The UCLA Nudge Unit is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Department of Medicine (DOM) and the Anderson School of Management utilizing theories from behavioral and psychological science to optimize outcomes across the healthcare delivery system. We have advised on several DOM Quality initiatives ranging from maximizing patient engagement in preventive care to identifying drivers that impact the effectiveness of physician incentive programs.
Applying a staged evaluation approach, we assess the effectiveness of interventions along a funnel of desired behavior outcomes, with success ultimately defined as the desired physician or patient engagement with the healthcare system. We evaluate both short-term process outcomes and long-term health outcomes to comprehensively understand the scope of impact for each intervention, identify barriers to behavior change in specific settings, and use this knowledge to inform the next version of intervention design.
Our aim is to design initiatives that lead to immediate quality improvement while informing scalable and theory-informed behavioral interventions that can be standardized across UCLA Health and other healthcare settings. We use rapid randomized controlled trial (RCT) designs to test and adapt our intervention using real-time data throughout the intervention phase. We also utilize implementation science methods to analyze barriers and facilitators to adoption to ultimately promote the systematic uptake of effective interventions in applied practice settings.