The Italian Society of Internal Medicine choosing wisely campaign

Abstract

Appropriateness is one of the critical aspects of medicine. For this reason, the Italian Society of Internal Medicine (SIMI) decided to adhere to the Choosing Wisely Campaign. A bottom-up approach was chosen. All the recommendations published in the US and Canadian Choosing Wisely campaign have been screened, and an e-mail was sent to all the SIMI members for new suggestions. The thirty interventions that were judged as the highest priority by a committee were sent to all the SIMI members for voting. The first procedures selected were then revised, and constituted the five points of the SIMI choosing wisely campaign. The identified procedures were: (1) avoid prescribing bed rest unless an acceptable indication exists. Promote early mobilization; (2) Do not perform a D-dimer test without a precise indication; (3) Do not prescribe long term intravenous antibiotic therapy in the absence of symptoms; (4) Do not indefinitely prescribe proton pump inhibitors in the absence of specific indications; (5) Do not place, or leave in place, peripherally inserted central catheters for patient’s or provider’s convenience. Four of these points were not present in any other campaign, while one, the fifth, was already present. The bottom-up approach of the SIMI “Choosing Wisely” campaign favored the identification of different priorities compared to other campaigns. Future studies should now evaluate if the application of these “not-to-do” recommendations will be associated with an improvement of clinical outcome and a subsequent direct and indirect health care cost reduction.