The Medical Professionalism Blog

This week’s Recommended Reading spotlights recent articles on the Choosing Wisely^® campaign and other efforts to reduce unnecessary health care tests and procedures.

• In The Wall Street Journal article, Cause of Death: Medical Error and Overtreatment, Marty Makary, MD shares personal stories from patients who have experienced adverse medical events. Dr. Makary argues that health care transparency and accountability are the keys to reducing medical errors and overtreatment, saying, “If we are going to finally get serious about addressing the large burden of waste in healthcare … the first step is to be open and honest about the task.”

• Rita Redberg, editor of the Archives of Internal Medicine, wrote a San Francisco Chronicle article arguing for the need to address overtreatment in health care. She cites the Choosing Wisely campaign and a new University of California, San Francisco cost-awareness curriculum as two of several promising initiatives. She also urges patients and physicians to have conversations about the necessity of tests and procedures.

• The Commonwealth Fund and the National Business Coalition on Health spotlight Choosing Wisely in their latest “Purchasing High Performance” newsletter. In the article, ABIM Foundation Executive Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer Daniel Wolfson notes that reducing overtreatment will require a “cultural shift” and that the campaign is “provoking informed conversations between patients and physicians.”