Therapeutic inertia (also known as clinical inertia) is a measurement of the resistance to therapeutic treatment for an existing medical condition. It is commonly measured as a percentage of the number of encounters in which a patient with a condition received new or increased therapeutic treatment out of the total number of visits to a health care professional by the patient.
Therapeutic inertia describes the phenomenon where patients exhibit a lack of response to existing treatments, making it difficult to improve their condition. This resistance can be gauged by examining the percentage of times new or intensified therapies are administered during a patient's overall healthcare visits.