Background: Formal curricula for teaching medical students high value care are lacking, and there is little evidence identifying strategies that can effectively impact students’ knowledge and skills. Research is needed to develop models for student-led HVC implementation in healthcare settings.

Purpose: To create a student-led longitudinal curricular experience that leads to improvements in utilization outcomes.

Description: We created a Student High Value Care (sHVC) Committee, led by two student Co-Chairs paired with two faculty Co-Directors.  All medical students at Icahn School of Medicine were invited to apply to join the committee.  The sHVC longitudinal initiative focused on six core elements: (1) Student leadership (2) Peer learning group, (3) Faculty mentorship, (4) Institutional and data support, (5) Curriculum for value improvement, and (6) Scholarship. Curricular objectives focused on value, quality improvement, leadership, and scholarship.

Conclusions: Twenty-one students were accepted to the committee. Students were divided into 3 teams, each with a faculty mentor. Committee meetings were held monthly, with a lecture and project work time; each team also met separately. Brainstorming in each team enabled student-led selection of a topic related to overuse (e.g. reducing “daily labs”) and development of innovative ideas to reduce overuse. Committee time was split between reporting on progress and delivery of a formal Student Value Improvement Curriculum (sVIC). The sVIC focused on traditional quality improvement topics such as process mapping and Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles, and principles of change management, value, cost, drivers of overuse. After four months, groups presented their projects at the “sHVC Innovations Pitch Day” and faculty offered feedback. Two projects have shown successful outcomes, outlined in Figure 1 and Figure 2. The sHVC Committee has also led to creation of a sHVC website, social media outreach, and a new medical student elective course. Our second year, currently in progress, has twenty-six new students divided into four teams, with continued engagement of the first year teams.

The sHVC Committee and sVIC allowed for student-led experiential learning on high value care and created the structure and support for implementation of meaningful projects that have improved outcomes.