EHR alerts to promote adoption of limited echocardiograms in outpatient clinics: An evaluation of a value-based care initiative
November 4th, 2025
We're excited to share a collaborative success story! Stanford Health Care (SHC) supported the Evaluation Science Unit (ESU) to partner with leaders of a Value-Based Care project focused on the use of cardiac imaging in outpatient clinics. This project included implementation of an EHR alternative alert to promote adoption of lower cost limited rather than full echocardiograms for appropriate patients in cardiology and primary care clinics. Through a mixed-methods evaluation, we quantitatively assessed the effect of the alert on ordering patterns and qualitatively explored physician perspectives on the intervention. Join us to learn how the evaluation results can inform future value-based care initiatives and how similar projects can effectively integrate researchers at the ESU into quality improvement efforts.
Samantha M.R. Kling, PhD, RD
Samantha M.R. Kling, PhD, RD, is a quantitative research scientist in the Evaluation Sciences Unit, with expertise in mixed methods research, evaluation, and implementation science. She partners with collaborators to design and implement pragmatic evaluations, utilizing an implementation science approach to assess healthcare innovations and to generate better healthcare outcomes within Stanford Medicine and beyond.
Neil M. Kalwani, MD, MPP
Dr. Neil Kalwani is Director of Preventive Cardiology at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System and clinical instructor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University. His research focuses on the implementation and evaluation of innovations in care delivery designed to improve the value of care for people living with cardiovascular disease.
