Summary Overuse, which is defined as the provision of medical services that are more likely to cause harm than good, is a global problem that afflicts rich and poor countries alike. This article reviews the definition of overuse, methods for measuring overuse, harms from overuse, and the evidence for worldwide overuse of many types of services.

ObjectiveTo examine 27 low-value procedures, as defined by international recommendations, in New South Wales public hospitals.DesignAnalysis of admitted patient data for financial years 2010–2011 to 2016–2017.Main outcome measuresNumber and proportion of episodes identified as low value by two definitions (narrower and broader), associated costs and bed-days, and variation between hospitals in financial year 2016–2017; trends in numbers of low-value episodes from 2010–2011 to 2016–2017.ResultsFor 27 procedures in 2016–2017, we identified 5079 (narrower definition) to 8855 (broader definition) episodes involving low-value care (11.00%–19.18% of all 46 169 episodes involving these services). These episodes were associated with total inpatient costs of $A49.9 million (narrower) to $A99.3 million (broader), which was 7.4% (narrower) to 14.7% (broader) of the total $A674.6 million costs for all episodes involving these procedures in 2016–2017, and involved 14 348 (narrower) to 29 705 (broader) bed-days. Half the procedures accounted for less than 2% of all low-value episodes identified; three of these had no low-value episodes in 2016–2017. The proportion of low-value care varied widely between hospitals. Of the 14 procedures accounting for most low-value care, seven showed decreasing trends from 2010–2011 to 2016–2017, while three (colonoscopy for constipation, endoscopy for dyspepsia, sentinel lymph node biopsy for melanoma in situ) showed increasing trends.ConclusionsLow-value care in this Australian public hospital setting is not common for most of the measured procedures, but colonoscopy for constipation, endoscopy for dyspepsia and sentinel lymph node biopys for melanoma in situ require further investigation and action to reverse increasing trends. The variation between procedures and hospitals may imply different drivers and potential remedies.

ObjectiveLow-value health care refers to interventions where the risk of harm or costs exceeds the likely benefit for a patient. We aimed to develop indicators of low-value care, based on selected Choosing Wisely (CW) recommendations, applicable to routinely collected, hospital claims data.ResultsWe assessed 824 recommendations from the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom CW lists regarding their capacity to be measured in administrative hospital admissions datasets. We selected recommendations if they met the following criteria: the service occurred in the hospital setting (observable in setting); a claim recorded the use of the service (record of service); the appropriate/inappropriate use of the service could be mapped to information within the hospital claim (indication); and the service is consistently recorded in the claims (consistent documentation). We identified 17 recommendations (15 services) as measurable. We then developed low-value care indicators for two hospital datasets based on the selected recommendations, previously published indicators, and clinical input.

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BackgroundGrowing imperatives for safety, quality and responsible resource allocation have prompted renewed efforts to identify and quantify harmful or wasteful (low-value) medical practices such as test ordering, procedures and prescribing. Quantifying these practices at a population level using routinely collected health data allows us to understand the scale of low-value medical practices, measure practice change following specific interventions and prioritise policy decisions. To date, almost all research examining health care through the low-value lens has focused on medical services (tests and procedures) rather than on prescribing. The protocol described herein outlines a program of research funded by Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council to select and quantify low-value prescribing practices within Australian routinely collected health data.MethodsWe start by describing our process for identifying and cataloguing international low-value prescribing practices. We then outline our approach to translate these prescribing practices into indicators that can be applied to Australian routinely collected health data. Next, we detail methods of using Australian health data to quantify these prescribing practices (e.g. prevalence of low-value prescribing and related costs) and their downstream health consequences. We have approval from the necessary Australian state and commonwealth human research ethics and data access committees to undertake this work.DiscussionThe lack of systematic and transparent approaches to quantification of low-value practices in routinely collected data has been noted in recent reviews. Here, we present a methodology applied in the Australian context with the aim of demonstrating principles that can be applied across jurisdictions in order to harmonise international efforts to measure low-value prescribing. The outcomes of this research will be submitted to international peer-reviewed journals. Results will also be presented at national and international pharmacoepidemiology and health policy forums such that other jurisdictions have guidance to adapt this methodology.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13012-017-0585-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Key Points Question What hospital characteristics are associated with overuse of health care services in the US? Findings In this cross-sectional study of 1 325 256 services performed at 3351 hospitals, we found that hospitals in the South, for-profit hospitals, and nonteaching hospitals were associated with the highest rates of overuse. Meaning Variation within specific hospital types and regions may uncover opportunities for targeted interventions to address overuse.

ObjectiveTo examine the prevalence, costs and trends (2010–2014) for 21 low-value inpatient procedures in a privately insured Australian patient cohort.DesignWe developed indicators for 21 low-value procedures from evidence-based lists such as Choosing Wisely, and applied them to a claims data set of hospital admissions. We used narrow and broad indicators where multiple low-value procedure definitions exist.Setting and participantsA cohort of 376 354 patients who claimed for an inpatient service from any of 13 insurance funds in calendar years 2010–2014; approximately 7% of the privately insured Australian population.Main outcome measuresCounts and proportions of low-value procedures in 2014, and relative change between 2010 and 2014. We also report both the Medicare (Australian government) and the private insurance financial contributions to these low-value admissions.ResultsOf the 14 662 patients with admissions for at least 1 of the 21 procedures in 2014, 20.8%–32.0% were low-value using the narrow and broad indicators, respectively. Of the 21 procedures, admissions for knee arthroscopy were highest in both the volume and the proportion that were low-value (1607–2956; 44.4%–81.7%).Seven low-value procedures decreased in use between 2010 and 2014, while admissions for low-value percutaneous coronary interventions and inpatient intravitreal injections increased (51% and 8%, respectively).For this sample, we estimated 2014 Medicare contributions for admissions with low-value procedures to be between $A1.8 and $A2.9 million, and total charges between $A12.4 and $A22.7 million.ConclusionsThe Australian federal government is currently reviewing low-value healthcare covered by Medicare and private health insurers. Estimates from this study can provide crucial baseline data and inform design and assessment of policy strategies within the Australian private healthcare sector aimed at curtailing the high volume and/or proportions of low-value procedures.

To establish the set of hospitals included in the ranking, we started with mortality using the Medicare Provider Analysis and Review (MEDPAR) administrative claims dataset. From this list, we obtained information on hospital characteristics from the Fiscal Year Ending (FYE) 2017 American Hospital Association (AHA) annual survey and Medicare Impact File as well as the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare database. Non-acute care hospitals, federal hospitals (e.g. Veterans Administration) and those outside of the 50 states and Washington, D.C. were excluded, as were hospitals run by Medicare Advantage programs (Kaiser Permanente, for example), and specialty hospitals with more than 20 percent admissions for orthopedic or cardiac procedures. We eliminated hospitals that were closed in 2019 by checking Hospital Compare, a website run by CMS. This left a list of 3,359 hospitals, 542 of which are for-profit, 2,188 private nonprofit, and 629 public nonprofit hospitals. For the Lown Index hospital set, we defined Safety Net hospitals as the 20 percent of hospitals with the greatest proportion of patients eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. The dual-eligibility ratio was measured as the number of dual-eligible patient days out of all Medicare patient days in MEDPAR. COMPOSITE SCORE Our rankings are based on three categories of data: patient outcomes, civic leadership, and value of care. These were weighted at 50, 30, and 20 percent respectively in the final ranking. The three categories comprise seven sub-components, each of which includes several more detailed measurements. The detailed measurements were rolled up into the components, which were rolled up into their respective categories to obtain