The overuse of some medical services remains a chronic problem in the United States (1). Overuse of health care, or the provision of low- or no-value services, contributes to high costs (2). More importantly, these wasteful services are physically, psychologically, and financially harmful to patients. More than a decade ago, the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation launched Choosing Wisely to draw attention to low-value practices (3). This campaign aimed to spark conversations between clinicians and patients about health care services that specialty societies identified as being of low value to patients. This includes services that are harmful and should not be offered, such as antibiotics for viral illnesses; services from which harms are expected to exceed the benefits, such as some cancer screening tests in older adults; and services that lead to harmful and expensive care cascades, such as whole-body scanning. Despite growing awareness of the harms of low value and overused services, these practices stubbornly persist, albeit with important variation across regions and health systems (4).
Citation
Jodi B. Segal. Reducing Low-Value Health Care. Ann Intern Med.2024;177:397-398. [Epub 6 February 2024]. doi:10.7326/M24-3501
