Slow Medicine and Choosing Wisely: a synergistic alliance

Choosing Wisely® is an initiative of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation to help physicians and patients engage in conversations about the overuse of tests and procedures and support physician efforts to help patients make smart and effective care choices. Choosing Wisely campaigns are now active and present in 25 countries around the world, on five continents. Italy is the only country where a Choosing Wisely campaign was launched, and it is currently steered by a Nationwide association (Slow Medicine), creating a synergistic alliance. The Slow Medicine Association was founded in 2011 when a group of health professionals and citizens shared a new paradigm of values, methodology, and interventions and decided to establish an association with the mission of working for a health system driven by ethics and quality principles. Three keywords summarize the philosophy of Slow Medicine: measured because it acts with moderation, gradualness, and without waste; respectful because it is attentive to the dignity of individuals recognizing their values; and equitable because it is committed to ensuring appropriate care based on the best available evidence. Slow Medicine allowed the spread of Choosing Wisely in Italy involving several professional societies and participating at the National meetings of the Societies as well as numerous other meetings, in which the mission of the Association is combined with the principle of the ‘do not’ recommendations. Numerous other initiatives were carried out, and new projects were planned in synergy with Choosing Wisely.

Letter to the Editor Regarding the Article “Rethinking the Choosing Wisely Portugal Recommendation on Breast Cancer Screening”

N/a.

Choosing Wisely Canada: Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society’s List of Top Items Physicians and Patients Should Question in Fertility Medicine

Purpose: To create a Choosing Wisely Canada list of the top 5 diagnostic and therapeutic interventions that should be questioned in Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility in Canada.Methods: The Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS) National Working Group developed an initial list of recommendations of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions that are commonly used, but are not supported by evidence, and could expose patients to unnecessary harm. These were chosen based on their prevalence, cost, potential for harm, and quality of supporting evidence. A modified Delphi consensus was used over 5 rounds to generate ideas, review supporting evidence, assess clinical relevance, estimate recommendation impact and narrow the recommendations list to 5 items. Results: Fifty unique ideas were first proposed by the working group, and after 5 rounds including a survey of Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society (CFAS) members, the final list of recommendations was created, including topics related to unnecessary investigations and interventions for patients with infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss, and those undergoing IVF. In this article, we describe not only the Delphi process used to determine the list, but also provide a summary of the evidence behind each of the final recommendations. Conclusions: The list of 5 recommendations highlights opportunities to initiate conversations between clinicians and patients about the risks, benefits, harms and costs of unnecessary fertility treatments and procedures in a Canadian context.

Geriatric Choosing Wisely choice of recommendations in France: a pragmatic approach based on clinical audits

Background The international Choosing Wisely campaign seeks to improve the appropriateness of care, notably through large campaigns among physicians and users designed to raise awareness of the risks inherent in overmedication. Methods In deploying the Choosing Wisely campaign, the French Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology chose early operationalization via a tool for clinical audit over a limited area before progressive dissemination. This enabled validation of four consensual recommendations concerning the management of urinary tract infections, the prolonged use of anxiolytics, the use of neuroleptics in dementia syndromes, and the use of statins in primary prevention. The fifth recommendation concerns the importance of a dialogue on the level of care. It was written by patient representatives directly involved in the campaign. Results The first cross-regional campaign in France involved 5337 chart screenings in 43 health facilities. Analysis of the results showed an important variability in practices between institutions and significant percentage of inappropriate prescriptions, notably of psychotropic medication. Discussion The high rate of participation of target institutions shows that geriatrics professionals are interested in the evaluation and optimization of professional practices. Frequent overuse of psychotropic medication highlights the need of campaigns to raise awareness and encourage deprescribing.