HCFO Study on Choosing Wisely Cited in Harvard School of Public Health Featured News Story

The Harvard School of Public Health featured a news story [1]on reducing wasteful health care and mentioned efforts like the ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely [2]initiative, which encourages physicians, patients and other health care stakeholders to have conversations about medical tests and procedures that may be unnecessary and, in some instances, cause harm. The story quoted Meredith Rosenthal, Ph.D., Harvard School of Public Health, on the potential for Choosing Wisely to reduce health spending, and Rosenthal noted that the impact is likely to be limited until more information is available on the actual services that are being overused. The story cites a publication [3]on the complexities around labeling low-value services, which resulted from a study funded in-part by HCFO. Rosenthal collaborated with Carrie Colla, Ph.D., Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, on this HCFO-funded study [4], which assessed the prevalence, variation, and correlates of overuse of low-value services, as designated by the Choosing Wisely initiative.