Article type
Year
Abstract
Background:
There is an increasing concern about the importance of avoiding practices of low value in healthcare (i.e. with uncertain or questionable benefit) in order to improve appropriateness, patient safety and alleviate financial pressure. Many worldwide initiatives have analysed the appropriateness of different interventions and, as a result, some lists of recommendations about overused, underused or misused interventions have been published by different means. A single source to consult these recommendations would be useful for decision-making.
Objectives:
To develop a website to disseminate worldwide initiatives that have analysed appropriateness in healthcare and their results.
Methods:
In order to create the contents of the website, we performed a wide search in PubMed and Google using different terms related to the topic. We also consulted experts in the field. We designed a free access website aimed at clinicians, health managers and researchers, available in English and Spanish.
Results:
DianaHealth.com is already online in www.dianahealth.com (Fig 1). It has three sections.
1) A list of initiatives that have analysed appropriateness in healthcare, including a descriptive profile and links to the references. 2) A database of recommendations about overused, underused or misused interventions. The database can be consulted using one or more searching criteria: initiative, specialty, type of intervention (e.g. diagnostic, pharmacologic, preventive), type of recommendation (in favour or against), publication year or search terms.
3) A section open to the users, to suggest the inclusion of new initiatives or recommendations. DianaHealth.com contains 1267 recommendations from 11 initiatives at this moment, and it is constantly updated with more initiatives and recommendations.
Conclusions:
DianaHealth.com collects information about inappropriate, unnecessary or low value practices in healthcare. It is a potentially very useful tool to clinicians, health managers and researchers for using this information quickly and easily. It also allows comparison of results among initiatives and disseminates new analysis of appropriateness.
There is an increasing concern about the importance of avoiding practices of low value in healthcare (i.e. with uncertain or questionable benefit) in order to improve appropriateness, patient safety and alleviate financial pressure. Many worldwide initiatives have analysed the appropriateness of different interventions and, as a result, some lists of recommendations about overused, underused or misused interventions have been published by different means. A single source to consult these recommendations would be useful for decision-making.
Objectives:
To develop a website to disseminate worldwide initiatives that have analysed appropriateness in healthcare and their results.
Methods:
In order to create the contents of the website, we performed a wide search in PubMed and Google using different terms related to the topic. We also consulted experts in the field. We designed a free access website aimed at clinicians, health managers and researchers, available in English and Spanish.
Results:
DianaHealth.com is already online in www.dianahealth.com (Fig 1). It has three sections.
1) A list of initiatives that have analysed appropriateness in healthcare, including a descriptive profile and links to the references. 2) A database of recommendations about overused, underused or misused interventions. The database can be consulted using one or more searching criteria: initiative, specialty, type of intervention (e.g. diagnostic, pharmacologic, preventive), type of recommendation (in favour or against), publication year or search terms.
3) A section open to the users, to suggest the inclusion of new initiatives or recommendations. DianaHealth.com contains 1267 recommendations from 11 initiatives at this moment, and it is constantly updated with more initiatives and recommendations.
Conclusions:
DianaHealth.com collects information about inappropriate, unnecessary or low value practices in healthcare. It is a potentially very useful tool to clinicians, health managers and researchers for using this information quickly and easily. It also allows comparison of results among initiatives and disseminates new analysis of appropriateness.