Several more medical societies have joined the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation's Choosing Wisely campaign to cut unnecessary healthcare utilization.
The American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC), the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM), and the Access to Medical Imaging Coalition (AMIC) have joined the campaign, which earlier this week announced a list of 45 medical procedures across nine specialties that it believes are overutilized. The American College of Radiology contributed five imaging procedures to that list.
ASNC released its own list of five nuclear cardiology procedures that it believes physicians and patients should question before going ahead with studies. ASNC's five recommendations are:
- Don't perform stress cardiac imaging or coronary angiography in patients with cardiac symptoms unless high-risk markers are present.
- Don't perform cardiac imaging for patients who are at low risk.
- Don't perform radionuclide imaging as part of routine follow-up in asymptomatic patients.
- Don't perform cardiac imaging as a pre-operative assessment in patients scheduled to undergo low- or intermediate-risk non-cardiac surgery.
- Use methods to reduce radiation exposure in cardiac imaging, whenever possible, including not performing such tests when limited benefits are likely.
Over the next six months, SNM will begin the process of creating its list of five recommendations, which include evidence-based recommendations physicians and patients should discuss to help make decisions about the most appropriate care based on individual situations.
In a prepared statement, AMIC executive director Tim Trysla said Choosing Wisely "demonstrates broad consensus in the care provider community that appropriateness criteria are an effective tool to ensure high-quality patient care."
