Choosing Wisely - How to Be Health Savvy

diagnostics resources testing treatment waste Oct 17, 2024

Modern-day healthcare in Australia comes with an abundance of tests, scans, treatments, and procedures available at the click of a button 🖱️💉, but that’s not always necessarily a good thing. As technologies and treatments improve ⚙️📈, so too does the trend of “over-testing” 📊.

Organisations like Choosing Wisely Australia are facilitating and promoting discussions around unnecessary testing 🗣️🩺 and providing support and resources 📚💪 for healthcare professionals to make informed, educated decisions 🤔💡 about appropriate and evidence-based diagnostics, treatments 💊, and resource allocation 📊.

Why Is This Important?

For the Patient: 

😟 Physical testing can be painful and/or anxiety-provoking
☢️ Unnecessary exposure risk to radiation
💸 More testing = more chance of “incidentaloma,” leading to unnecessary treatment and financial expense
⚠️ Increased chance of false positive results - unnecessary further testing and treatment
⏳ OR false negative results - missed diagnosis and delayed treatment, resulting in disease progression
💰 Increased financial burden

For Healthcare Providers and Public Health:

 ⏲️ Increased waiting lists and delays for other patients needing testing/treatment
🏥 Increased burden on staff performing procedures
⚠️ Resource depletion - finances, equipment, consumables, staffing, bed access

For the Environment: 

🌍 Over-testing creates unnecessary waste and contributes to the overall carbon footprint of healthcare

What Can You Do to Help?

Ensure that the testing/procedures you are performing are evidence-based and clinically indicated for your patient:

🤔 Do you really need to run that last ABG “just in case”?
🩸 Has your patient already had pre-op bloods taken?
🔍 Has your crumbly, highly co-morbid add-on patient been properly worked up pre-op?
🛏️ Does your patient have a confirmed ICU bed prior to induction?
💊 Has your patient been prescribed Modified Release opioids for management of acute post-op pain despite them not being indicated?

Build Knowledge ✅ 

Improve Safety ✅

Ref: Choosing Wisely Australia (2024) https://www.choosingwisely.org.au/

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