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Oregon Medical Association Awarded Grant to Promote Choosing Wisely® Campaign

Educating consumers and providers to make smart and effective health care choices
November 4, 2013
The Oregon Medical Association has been awarded a two-year grant from the ABIM Foundation to promote the Choosing Wisely® (www.choosingwisely.org) campaign in Oregon. Choosing Wisely is an initiative to help physicians and patients think and talk about the overuse of tests and procedures; make smart and effective care choices. The goal of the OMA grant is to reduce overuse of care in Oregon by educating its membership and their patients about Choosing Wisely.   There is growing concern nationwide about the overuse of health care resources. Some routine tests and procedures may provide little, if any, benefit to patients; according to a report from the Institute of Medicine, up to 30 percent of health care spending is duplicative or unnecessary.1   Recognizing the importance of physicians and patients working together, dozens of leading specialty societies, along with Consumer Reports, have joined Choosing Wisely to help improve the quality and safety of health care in America. Over 30 national medical specialty societies have released lists of “Five Things Physicians and Patients Should Question,” covering more than 140 tests and procedures. The resulting lists for each participating medical specialty provide specific, evidence-based recommendations physicians and patients should discuss to help make wise decisions about the most appropriate care based on each individual’s situation. The ABIM Foundation has also worked with Consumer Reports to create a variety of patient-centered materials. These materials encourage conversation and translate the clinical recommendations into useful advice in layman’s terms.   The OMA has developed a Choosing Wisely web site (www.consumerhealthchoices.org/OMA) that provides access to each medical specialty’s recommendations, and a toolkit with each specialty’s brochure and customizable patient-centered materials for use by physicians, patients, practice managers and hospitals. The grant runs through March 31, 2015, and is made possible thanks to generous support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.   About the Oregon Medical Association   The Oregon Medical Association is an organization of over 8,000 physicians, physician assistants and medical and PA students organized to serve and support physicians in their efforts to improve the health of Oregonians. Additional information can be found at www.theOMA.org.   About the ABIM Foundation   The mission of the ABIM Foundation is to advance medical professionalism to improve the health care system. They achieve this by collaborating with physicians and physician leaders, medical trainees, health care delivery systems, payers, policy makers, consumer organizations and patients to foster a shared understanding of professionalism and how they can adopt the tenets of professionalism in practice. To learn more about the ABIM Foundation, visit www.abimfoundation.org.

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