Low-value Care

Haifa Doctors Confess: Patients Are Pushed to Get Unneeded Surgery, and the Damage Is Devastating

Abstract: Doctors within the ear-nose-and throat department at Rambam hospital speak up about a lucrative procedure they say is being done unnecessarily and in a slipshod manner, and about department heads whom they say insist indiscriminately on operating

Publication: Haaretz

Date Published: June 12, 2020

Author(s): Hilo Glazer

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To eliminate medication overload, serious cultural, educational, and policy changes are needed. This action plan offers recommendations for policymakers, health care institutions, clinicians, and patients across five key categories to reduce harm from multiple medication use. Suggested Citation: Eliminating medication overload: A national action plan. Working Group on Medication Overload. Brookline, MA: The Lown Institute, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46241/LI.YLBW4885

Pharmaceutical marketing is a significant factor in the growing public health crisis of medication overload, which puts millions of older adults at risk of preventable harm and premature death. This issue brief provides recommendations to reduce pharmaceutical industry influence by limiting pharma sales rep visits to clinicians and direct-to-consumer advertising.

This issue brief provides recommendations for clinical practice guidelines and electronic health records that would give clinicians the information they need to appropriately prescribe and deprescribe.