Another entry in JAMA Internal Medicine’s lovely “Less is More” series, this is a “systematic review” of the previous year’s literature regarding potentially unnecessary care. Living here in the asylum, it seems all our fellow inmates and I are consigned to issuing weather reports from the tempest – but, hey, baby steps.
Their “systematic review” is not particularly rigorous. It’s basically a literature search, followed by a subjective distillation by author consensus to those considered to be the most potentially impactful – but, regardless, their list is worth reviewing. Without further ado, the highlights of their ten selections:
- Transesophageal echocardiography is more informative than transthoracic in illuminating the etiology of a stroke, but the additive information does not have a clear downstream benefit on outcomes.
- Patients undergoing computed tomography to rule out pulmonary embolism without algorithm-compliant use of D-dimer suffer from overuse and low-value testing.
- CT use increased in all Emergency Department patients with respiratory symptoms, with no evidence of downstream change in prescribing, hospital admission, or mortality.
- Supplemental oxygen does not demonstrate benefit in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and mild exertional hypoxia.
- Small improvements in antibiotic prescribing were seen when comparisons to peers were performed.
- A shared decision-making implementation for Emergency Department patients with chest pain increased patient engagement and demonstrated a secondary effect of diminished admission and cardiac testing.
Wizard.
“2017 Update on Medical Overuse: A Systematic Review”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28973402