Our global medical culture has driven excessive diagnostic testing, overmedicalisation, and overtreatment across many conditions that may harm patients, exhaust healthcare resources, and harm the planet. The authors call upon local, national, and international decision makers to more prominently and openly acknowledge these issues and [...]
Clinical activity accounts for 70–80% of the carbon footprint of healthcare. A critical component of reducing emissions is shifting clinical behaviour towards reducing, avoiding, or replacing carbon-intensive healthcare. The objective of this systematic review was to find, map and assess behaviour change interventions that have [...]
Consistent evidence shows pathology services are overused worldwide and that about one-third of testing is unnecessary. Audit and feedback (AF) is effective for improving care but few trials evaluating AF to reduce pathology test requesting in primary care have been conducted. The aim of this [...]
Limited evidence is available on the cost-effectiveness of diagnostic imaging for back, neck, knee, and shoulder complaints. Decision analytic modelling may be an appropriate method to synthesise evidence from multiple sources, and overcomes issues with trial-based economic evaluations.
Overuse is defined as provision of healthcare which is more likely to result in harm than good, and it is fast becoming a threat to human health and the sustainability of health systems worldwide. Overuse may, but not always, increase the risk of overdiagnosis, which [...]
CTPA use increased from 2005 to 2015 while diagnostic yield amongst ED patients decreased. The PE hospitalization rate also increased, while the outcome of PE mortality remained constant. Although this study cannot prove that overuse occurred, increasing CTPA use with decreasing diagnostic yield suggests an [...]
Objectives: To determine the total annual screening and further-investigation costs of investigating false-positive and true-positive mammograms in the Australian population breast-screening program.
Overdiagnosis and overuse of healthcare services harm individuals, take resources that could be used to address underuse, and threaten the sustainability of health systems. These problems are attracting increasing attention in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Unaware of any review of relevant evidence, we conducted [...]
Last week, actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney released a video of themselves getting colonoscopies to encourage others to undergo screening. The procedure detected polyps in the two men, both aged 45...
November 2021 Wiser Healthcare welcomes the opportunity to provide our views on the Australian Department of Health's 10-year plan for Primary Health Care with the aim of strengthening the primary health care system to deliver the best health outcomes for Australians. [...]