Choosing Wisely grand rounds

Tuesday’s John Boden Symposium at Middlesex Hospital featured Michael LeFevre, MD, from UMissori-Columbia and Vice-Chair of the US Preventive Services Task Force, speaking on Choosing Wisely: How Doing Less Results in Better Care. The symposium was over-subscribed with 100 clinical staff eager to hear how they can provide better quality care by avoiding unnecessary treatments and screenings. Choosing Wisely is a national collaboration of forty four medical and consumer groups that have identified over 100 tests and treatments that are over-used. Examples include scheduling early elective C-sections, early imaging for low back pain, and routine antibiotics for sinusitis. Dr. Levre outlined the harm that comes from unnecessary screenings, unnecessary treatments after false positives, and cancers caused by routine, unnecessary imaging. One hospital estimated that they could pay for all their charity care if they could get providers to stop doing PAP smears on women who’ve had hysterectomies. If we don’t get this right, we can’t fix quality or control costs in our health system.