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Southern DHB joins the Choosing Wisely initiative

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Last week the Southern DHB formally joined the global health initiative known as Choosing Wisely, a programme set up to encourage health professionals and patients to examine and minimise unnecessary tests and treatments.

Video link attendees from Gore and Southland hospitals joined a large audience of clinicians, nurses, and members of the Southern DHB Executive Team in the Colquhoun Lecture Theatre for a presentation from the Chair of Choosing Wisely NZ, Dr Derek Sherwood.

Implemented in New Zealand, Australia, and 22 other countries, Choosing Wisely aims to promote a culture where patients and health professionals have well-informed conversations around their treatment options, leading to better decisions and outcomes.

“Patients usually think that the more testing they get, the more thorough the doctor must be, so we’ve got a problem there with how medicine is viewed.” said Dr Sherwood.

“If we really want this to work it needs to be led by health professionals. This is about stepping up, looking at our own practise and trying to do better. It should also be about harm reduction and not cost reduction.”

At the core of Choosing Wisely is the idea of avoiding situations where the risk of harm exceeds the likely benefit for a patient. Key principles also include avoiding over-testing, and reducing wastage in healthcare.

The Council of Medical Colleges (CMC) is facilitating this initiative in New Zealand, and the Southern DHB is proud to join with their commitment to improving the quality of care for all patients.

Gail Thomson, Executive Director Quality and Clinical Governance Solutions, says the aim is for the Choosing Wisely approach to become part of the Southern DHB’s day-to-day activity.

“This is about doing the right thing and embedding it, not about doing a whole lot of new things. Our staff and consumers have been quite passionate about this for a while, so we are saying ‘now is the time’.

“Like all DHBs, we want to be doing the right thing. Choosing Wisely is part of our approach to continually improve the quality of our care and clinical governance and be a safer organisation.”