Choosing Wisely

Choosing Wisely is a United States-based health educational campaign, led by the ABIM Foundation. It seeks to improve doctor–patient relationships and promote patient-centered care by informing patients and physicians about overutilization of medical resources.

The campaign addresses the problem of patients receiving unnecessary health treatment, reasoning that this results in poor outcomes for the patient and could create significant waste in the United States healthcare system. To conduct the campaign, a coordinator from ABIM Foundation asks medical specialty professional organizations to make five recommendations for preventing overuse of a treatment in their field. Distributors then share this information with community groups nationwide, and the medical specialty societies disseminate it to their members. The intent is that patients and doctors will discuss the recommendations in these lists, believing that if patients and doctors communicate with each other more effectively when making health decisions patients will have better outcomes and the medical system itself will benefit.

The campaign follows a history of proposals for both increasing doctor-patient communication and reducing waste in health care. Most commentators confirm the existence of avoidable waste in the health care system. Proponents of the campaign say that it is a uniquely broad and much-needed effort.

The Choosing Wisely campaign presents the following background and narrative to explain its motivation: The cost of health care in the United States is not affordable for many people or the nation. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States spends more than 20 times what comparable countries spend per person on healthcare. Some analysts have proposed that identifying and eliminating waste in health care would result in significant savings for the health care system and reduced costs for employers. A 2005 study by the National Academy of Sciences argued that 30% of the health care spending in the United States was wasteful and subsequent research has supported this finding. Some reports indicate that countries comparable to the United States are able to provide better health care to more people while consuming fewer medical resources. Reducing the cost of health care would make it accessible to more people.

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