NEWS & EVENTS

Empowering clinicians to identify and reduce low-value healthcare

28 October 2021

A Queensland project team aims to drive sustainable change in the hospital sector by empowering clinicians and local healthcare teams to identify and reduce low-value care. Non-beneficial, potentially harmful, or otherwise low-value care remains a challenge for healthcare systems locally and internationally. In the Australian healthcare environment, there are limitations to using top-down approaches to reduce low-value care. The project team is currently developing a practical toolkit to empower health professionals to recognise low-value care and make better decisions about clinical care. They aim to have the toolkit ready by December 2021. Through BDHP, this work is led by the Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation (AusHSI) with partners and investigators* across Metro North Health, Metro South Health and Children’s Health Queensland. The project team gathered input from various stakeholders, including clinical experts (medical, nursing, allied health practitioners), healthcare consumers, implementation scientists, health economists, healthcare leaders and managers. In addition to conducting stakeholder interviews, the team has reviewed published and grey literature, guidelines for toolkit development, and implementation science. The initial toolkit includes content related to:

• understanding the problem
• quantifying low-value care
• exploring who is affected and the drivers behind the low-value care.

The toolkit has three focus areas:

1. Planning: selecting strategies to de-implement low-value care, including how to engage relevant stakeholders from the outset.
2. Action: including the facilitation, leadership, and monitoring of de-implementation.
3. Sustaining better care: keeping up the momentum beyond the initial change and embedding new standards of higher-value care into business as usual.

This project is an ongoing program of work and part of the AHRA Health Systems Improvement and Sustainability (HSIS) national systems-level initiative. HSIS draws on the best expertise and skills to develop models of care that improve Australia’s healthcare system. For more details, please contact Emma White. *The project investigators:

• Professor Steven McPhail
• Dr Zephanie Tyack
• Dr Hannah Carter
• Dr Michelle Allen
• Dr Sameera Senanayake
• Ms Carla Shield
• Professor Ian Scott
• Professor Katrina Campbell
• Professor Roy Kimble
• Professor Anne Chang