In health care, more is not always better.
We know what to do less of, but how?

Unnecessary diagnostic tests, treatments or hospitalizations can drive up health care costs, and in some cases, actually harm patients. Reducing this overused care requires that health care organizations actively engage in the challenging work of sustained culture, organizational and behavior change.

Learn about the Safety Net Value Champions Fellowship.

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What is Value and Why Take Action in the Safety Net?

In this webinar, hear from our Value Champion fellows and faculty about the intersection between value and equity, and why taking action on overuse is so important to the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Also learn a definition of value that is relevant to patients.

About

Taking Action on Overuse is a framework for health care organizations to engage their care teams in reducing overused, unnecessary care and make those efforts last. It identifies evidence-based strategies for obtaining buy-in, motivating behavior changes, and providing the necessary support and infrastructure for health care providers to engage and lead their peers in making the changes that improve the value of health care.

This website presents an updated version of the framework, based on our application and learning between January 2017 and July 2018. We engaged three health care organizations representing different health care settings to apply the framework to different overused services. Our Capstone Summit in June 2018 brought together these partners and other organizations working on overuse to share learnings, review emerging best practices, and test an evolved framework.

Findings & Stories

Find out what we learned about overuse and implementing the Taking Action on Overuse Framework.

Lessons Learned from the Taking Action on Overuse Project Across Three Partner Sites

During the Taking Action on Overuse project, we partnered with three diverse health care organizations that used the Taking Action on Overuse Framework to address overuse topics. The partner sites are UCLA Medical Group, Swedish Medical System, and Missouri Primary Care Association. Much was learned about the challenges and opportunities of addressing overuse.

Key takeaways

  • Reducing overuse is challenging and takes time, perhaps more so than traditional QI projects.
  • Sustained leadership engagement is necessary to the success of overuse reduction efforts.
  • In addition to leader support, front-line engagement

What does “care teams taking ownership” look like?

The ultimate goal of the Taking Action on Overuse framework is to help your organization build a culture where care teams take ownership for reducing overuse. But what does this look like? Our research of medical overuse reduction efforts across the country revealed common indicators of success that include:

Top 10 strategies to promote sense-making conversations about reducing medical overuse

Set aside time and space for discussions about overuse
1. Devote a medical staff case conference, morbidity & mortality conference or medical grand rounds to a specific example of how overuse led to patient harm
2. Incorporate stories and strategies for reducing overuse into existing staff meetings, nursing rounds or

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