Results

Behavioural Insights Team annual update 2010-11

The Behavioural Insights Team’s Annual Update 2010-11 provides a summary of the Team’s work since it was set up in July 2010.

Behavioural Insights Team’s Annual Update 2011/12

Applying Behavioural Insights to Organ Donation

A randomised controlled trial measured how successful different approaches were in encouraging more people to join the Organ Donor Register.

Redesigning hospital prescription charts to reduce prescribing errors

Research supported by the Behavioural Insights Team has demonstrated how prescribing behaviour can be significantly improved by making simple changes to prescription charts used in NHS hospitals. Below is a guest blog, written by Dom King, a good friend of BIT, co-author of MINDSPACE and the lead researcher on this…

Reducing errors in medical decision-making

“Sarah, can you hear me?” The patient lies on the trolley, silent and grey. The doctor bends over her with growing concern. Now he feels no pulse, no breathing – and a once innocuous situation has slipped into crisis. Professional instinct takes over: with a pull of a lever, the…

Applying Behavioral Economics in a Health Policy Context

The goal of this chapter is to describe how behavioural economics has been applied to health care sector, beginning with the origins of the Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom, and concluding with the broad public health policy context in both the United Kingdom and across much of the…

Stating Appointment Costs in SMS Reminders Reduces Missed Hospital Appointments: Findings from Two Randomised Controlled Trials

Missed hospital appointments are a major cause of inefficiency worldwide. Healthcare providers are increasingly using Short Message Service reminders to reduce ‘Did Not Attend’ (DNA) rates.

Reducing missed appointments

One in ten hospital outpatient appointments is missed – people don’t turn up, and don’t cancel or rearrange in advance. That’s 5.5 million appointments every year in England alone. Missed appointments lead to people not getting the care they need, when they need it. They also lead to costs to…

Victoria’s Citizens’ Jury on Obesity

Wow! I'm writing this heading back from Australia, from the citizens’ jury VicHealth have just supported on obesity. It was a very powerful, and moving, process. Having seen the jury in action, it is hard to imagine a future of democracy – and the application of behavioural science to policy –…

Applying behavioural insights to improve life chances

A quiet moment in Davos, among the world’s elites, is a strange place to reflect on those whose accidents of birth make it hard to get to a place like this, even from a relatively affluent country like Britain. I’m here as Chair of the WEF group on behaviour, and…