THURSDAY, Dec. 29 (HealthDay News) -- If you've had a medical procedure lately, we substantially initial had blood tests, an imaging exam like an MRI or ultrasound, maybe an electrocardiogram and presumably more.
"Is all this unequivocally necessary?" we competence have wondered.
That's a doubt that doctors themselves are now lifting as a flourishing body of justification suggests that overuse of diagnostic testing competence be harming patients' health and pushing adult health-care costs.
"There is transparent overuse or injustice of certain kinds of tests for certain patients," pronounced Dr. Steven E. Weinberger, executive clamp boss and chief executive officer of a American College of Physicians.
So should doctors practice some-more restraint, or should patients take a more active and doubtful purpose in their care?
Weinberger believes a answer lies somewhere in a middle. "There needs to be an honest review in both directions, with a transparent understanding about what is and isn't necessary," he said.
Experts determine that extreme contrast is costing a U.S. health-care system billions by waste. Weinberger pronounced that some estimates have suggested a cost could run as high as $200 billion to $250 billion a year, an volume equal to about 10 percent of a sum volume spent on a nation's health care.
But a loyal cost is borne by patients who face increasing health risks associated with justification testing, he said. Dr. Anthony Shih, executive vice boss for programs of a Commonwealth Fund, a private health policy investigate foundation, agreed.
"Although many patients are wakeful that procedures lift some risks, they are reduction wakeful that tests lift risks," Shih said.
Diagnostic testing, in fact, carries 3 categorical risks, Weinberger and Shih said:
A slight electrocardiogram, for example, competence brand some nonspecific condition that leads to a cardiac catheterization, an invasive medical procession that carries a possess set of health risks, Weinberger said.
"Unnecessary contrast is not indispensably benign," he said. "It can lead to situations that can poise health risks to patients."
Clearly, patients should turn some-more active in seeking either tests are necessary. But as many anyone who's been a studious can attest, seeking such questions can be daunting for anyone, though generally for a ill chairman who needs treatment.
Weinberger pronounced he has personal knowledge when it comes to a difficulty of severe tests as a patient. He recently had arthroscopic surgery for a knee injury, though before a procession he had to bear a battery of diagnostics that enclosed lab tests, a chest X-ray and an electrocardiogram -- all unnecessary, as distant as he could tell. And yet, he had a tests but doubt them.
"My knowledge shows we how tough it is," Weinberger said. "If there's anyone who was in a position to doubt these tests, it's someone like me." But, he admitted, "you don't wish to alienate a chairman who's going to yield your care. Sometimes a easiest highway is to only go along."
His organization, a American College of Physicians, has started tackling a emanate by what it calls a High-Value, Cost-Conscious Care Initiative, that aims to revoke nonessential contrast by educating physicians and patients comparison on a benefits, harms and costs of tests linked to specific ailments.
"We're fundamentally perplexing to rise a list of those forms of things that are stale and try a justification behind because they are overused," Weinberger said.
Shih pronounced that people who are confronting justification tests should use such resources to teach themselves and afterwards feel giveaway to doubt their doctor about a tests that have been ordered.
"The studious should always ask what a exam is looking for, what a potential harms are for a test, and what a subsequent stairs are if a exam finds something," he said. "As a tests get some-more invasive and some-more complex, we would be some-more clever about seeking for a logic behind each test."
Ultimately, however, both patients and doctors need to keep in mind that a prerequisite of tests is a really specific and personal matter, Shih added.
"It's critical to commend that for any given patient, even with a exact same condition, a preference competence not be a same," he said. "It depends on a values and preferences of any patient."
"Some patients wish to be positively sure, while other patients competence be more gentle with uncertainty," Shih explained. "There is no hard-and-fast order for that tests competence be suitable for any situation."
More information
The U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has some-more on .
News referensi http://news.yahoo.com/american-medicine-too-test-happy-140304848.html
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