Please use this form to submit your study for inclusion into our database. It will be checked by a member of the Innovation Growth Lab team, who may be in contact to ask for more information. Your email address * Your name * Title * The name of the study Short summary A brief description of the project's goals and its current state Abstract <p>The adoption of new clinical practice patterns by medical care providers is often challenging, even when they are believed to be both efficacious and profitable. This paper uses a randomized field experiment to examine the effects of temporary financial incentives paid to medical care clinics for the initiation of prenatal care in the first trimester of pregnancy. The rate of early initiation of prenatal care was 34% higher in the treatment group than in the control group while the incentives were being paid, and this effect persisted at least 24 months or more after the incentives ended. These results are consistent with a model where the incentives enable providers to address the fixed costs of overcoming organizational inertia in innovation, and suggest that temporary incentives may be effective at motivating improvements in long run provider performance at a substantially lower cost than permanent incentives.</p> The full abstract of the study, if available Links http://www.nber.org/papers/w21361.pdf Links to any published papers and related discussions Authors * Affiliations Academic and other institutes that the authors of the study are members of Delivery partner Organisations involved in delivering the trial, if appropriate Year Year Year199419951996199719981999200020012002200320042005200620072008200920102011201220132014201520162017201820192020202120222023202420252026 Month MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec Day Day12345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 Journal Journal publishing the study, if available Publication stage * Working Paper Published Ongoing Research Forthcoming Discussion Paper Research theme * Entrepreneurship Innovation Business Growth Country Country or countries where this study took place. Topics What sort of topics does the study cover? Sample attributes Hypotheses / research question How do temporary financial incentives affect long-run productivity in medical care facilities? Sample Trial population and sample selection Primary healthcare clinics in the Argentine province of Misiones. Number of treatment groups Size of treatment groups Size of control group Unit of analysis Clustered? Yes No Cluster details Trial attributes Treatment description This study examined the short and long-term effects of temporary financial incentives on productivity in primary healthcare facilities. Specifically, it looked at the effects on health check ups for expectant mothers. Rounds of data collection Baseline data collection and method Primary healthcare records and insurance registry data Data collection method and data collected Evaluation Outcome variables <p>How early in their pregnancies expectant mothers had their first pre-natal check-up.</p> Results <p>The study found that temporary financial incentives increased productivity in healthcare facilities and that these increases persisted at least 24 months after the incentive programme ended.</p> Intervention costs Cost benefit ratio Reference Celhay, P., Gertler, P., Giovagnoli, P., Vermeersch, C. (2015). 'Long Run Effects of Temporary Incentives on Medical Care Productivity'. National Bureau of Economic Research. Citation for use in academic references
