Featured Stories

Chronic wounds represent a significant burden to patients and the healthcare system, and can result in significant functional impairment, reduction in quality of life and large financial costs (around 2% of total health expenditure in Australia). The Choosing Wound Care Wisely project from Mackay Hospital and Health Service (Mackay HHS) in Queensland is about ensuring wound treatment is appropriate to the cause and condition of a wound, maximising clinical effectiveness, reducing patient risk, minimising cost and facilitating patient choice where possible.

Opioids continue to be the primary drug associated with drug-related deaths in Australia with prescription opioids constituting the majority of unintentional deaths due to opioids since 2004. The Sunshine Coast Hospital and Health Service has applied a Choosing Wisely approach in the Emergency Department to address the problem.

The PROV-ED (PROmoting Value-based care in EDs) project disseminates value-based emergency department (ED) initiatives to public hospital clinicians using display monitors in clinical areas of EDs across Queensland.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demanded new, integrated and innovative approaches to the way healthcare is delivered. Telehealth options have been part of the solution to ensure patients continue to access the care they need in a timely, safe and convenient way. For some areas of medicine, patients may have reservations about if they will get the same level of care. Empowering health consumers to continue to ask questions in the virtual environment is important to ensure they get the right healthcare for them.

The Prince Charles Hospital in Chermside, Queensland is one of the newest Choosing Wisely Champion Health Services. Jessica Toleman, Senior Director of Clinical Operations tells the story of embedding Choosing Wisely into the organisation during COVID-19, making Choosing Wisely ‘the way we do things around here’.