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Background: Healthcare costs are rising worldwide. At the same time, a considerable proportion of care does not benefit or may even be harmful to patients. We aimed to explore attitudes towards low-value care and identify the most important barriers to the de-implementation of low-value care use in primary care in high-income countries. Methods: Between May and June 2022, we email surveyed primary care physicians in six high-income countries (Austria, Finland, Greece, Italy, Japan, and Sweden). Physician respondents were eligible if they had worked in primary care during the previous 24 months. The survey included four sections with categorized questions on (1) background information, (2) familiarity with Choosing Wisely recommendations, (3) attitudes towards overdiagnosis and overtreatment, and (4) barriers to de-implementation, as well as a section with open-ended questions on interventions and possible facilitators for de-implementation. We used descriptive statistics to present the results. Results: Of the 16,935 primary care physicians, 1,731 answered (response rate 10.2%), 1,505 had worked in primary care practice in the last 24 months and were included in the analysis. Of the respondents, 53% had read Choosing Wisely recommendations. Of the respondents, 52% perceived overdiagnosis and 50% overtreatment as at least a problem to some extent in their own practice. Corresponding figures were 85% and 81% when they were asked regarding their country's healthcare. Respondents considered patient expectations (85% answered either moderate or major importance), patient's requests for treatments and tests (83%), fear of medical error (81%), workload/lack of time (81%), and fear of underdiagnosis or undertreatment (79%) as the most important barriers for de-implementation. Attitudes and perceptions of barriers differed significantly between countries. Conclusions: More than 80% of primary care physicians consider overtreatment and overdiagnosis as a problem in their country's healthcare but fewer (around 50%) in their own practice. Lack of time, fear of error, and patient pressures are common barriers to de-implementation in high-income countries and should be acknowledged when planning future healthcare. Due to the wide variety of barriers to de-implementation and differences in their importance in different contexts, understanding local barriers is crucial when planning de-implementation strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Guidelines International Network (G-I-N) aims to promote high quality clinical guideline development and implementation. Guideline-based performance measures are a key implementation tool and are widely used internationally for quality improvement, quality assurance, and pay for performance in health care. There is, however, no international consensus on best methods for guideline-based performance measures. In order to address this issue, the G-I-N Performance Measures Working Group aimed to develop a set of consensus-based reporting standards for guideline-based performance measure development and re-evaluation.Methods: Methodology publications on guideline-based performance measures were identified from a systematic literature review and analyzed. Core criteria for the development and evaluation process of guideline-based performance measures were determined and refined into draft standards with an associated rationale and description of the evidence base. In a two-round Delphi-process, the group members appraised and approved the draft standards. After the first round, the group met to discuss comments and revised the drafts accordingly.Results: Twenty-one methodology publications were reviewed. The group reached strong consensus on nine reporting standards concerning: (1) selection of clinical guidelines, (2) extraction of clinical guideline recommendations, (3) description of the measure development process, (4) measure appraisal, (5) measure specification, (6) description of the intended use of the measure, (7) measure testing/validating, (8) measure review/re-evaluation, and (9) composition of the measure development panel.Conclusions: These proposed international reporting standards address core components of guideline-based performance measure development and re-evaluation. They are intended to contribute to international reporting harmonization and improvement of methods for performance measures. Further research is required regarding validity, acceptability, and practicality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Antihypertensive drug choices and treatment levels are not in accordance with the existing guidelines. We aimed to assess the impact of a guideline implementation intervention on antihypertensive drug prescribing., Methods: In this controlled before and after study, the effects of a multifaceted (education, audit and feedback, local care pathway) quality programme was evaluated. The intervention was carried out in a health centre between 2002 and 2003. From each health care unit (n = 31), a doctor-nurse pair was trained to act as peer facilitators in the intervention.All antihypertensive drugs prescribed by 25 facilitator general practitioners (intervention GPs) and 53 control GPs were retrieved from the nationwide Prescription Register for three-month periods in 2001 and 2003. The proportions of patients receiving specific antihypertensive drugs and multiple antihypertensive drugs were measured before and after the intervention for three subgroups of hypertension patients: hypertension only, with coronary heart disease, and with diabetes., Results: In all subgroups, the use of multiple concurrent medications increased. For intervention patients with hypertension only, the odds ratio (OR) was 1.12 (95% CI 0.99, 1.25; p = 0.06) and for controls 1.13 (1.05, 1.21; p = 0.002). We observed no statistically significant differences in the change in the prescribing of specific antihypertensive agents between the intervention and control groups. The use of agents acting on the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system increased in all subgroups (hypertension only intervention patients OR 1.19 (1.06, 1.34; p = 0.004) and controls OR 1.24 (1.15, 1.34; p < 0.0001)., Conclusions: A multifaceted guideline implementation intervention does not necessarily lead to significant changes in prescribing performance. Rigorous planning of the interventions and quality projects and their evaluation are essential.