Campaign targets health risks and costs

Doctors are being urged to question the necessity of a string of tests and procedures in a bid to protect patients and cut Australia's health costs.

Five medical colleges and societies have each come up with a list of "5 Things clinicians and consumers should question" relating to their area of expertise.

They've identified tests, treatments and procedures they think are of proven low value or carry an unnecessary risk.

The lists include recommendations on food allergy testing, prostate cancer screening, vitamin D screening, monitoring of type 2 diabetes and ankle and spine imaging.

The lists are the first to be released in the Choosing Wisely Australia campaign, modelled on a US program, and run by NPS MedicineWise.

"The initiative challenges the notion that more is always better when it comes to health care," its CEO Dr Lynn Weekes.

SOME `CHOOSING WISELY' RECOMMENDATIONS

* Don't order imaging for patients with non-specific acute low back pain

* Question the long-term use of one of Australia's most prescribed medicines, proton pump inhibitors, used to treat stomach acid and reflux

* Alternative/unorthodox methods, such as homeopathy and kinesiology, should not be used for allergy testing or treatment

* Don't advocate routine self-monitoring of blood glucose for people with type 2 diabetes who are on oral medication only

* Don't perform prostate specific antigen testing for prostate cancer screening in men with no symptoms and whose life expectancy is less than seven years.

* Read the lists by the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine, the Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy, The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists and The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia at www.choosingwisely.org.au.