Recommendations
Tests, treatments, and procedures for healthcare providers and consumers to question
Australia's peak health professional colleges, societies and associations have developed lists of recommendations of the tests, treatments, and procedures that healthcare providers and consumers should question.
Each recommendation is based on the latest available evidence. Importantly, they are not prescriptive but are intended as guidance to start a conversation about what is appropriate and necessary.
As each situation is unique, healthcare providers and consumers should use the recommendations to collaboratively formulate an appropriate healthcare plan together.
Occupational and environmental medicine
Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
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- Do not repeat chest X-rays when screening asbestos-exposed workers unless clinically indicated.
- Do not certify a patient as totally unfit for work unless the work absence is clinically necessary and the patient is unfit for suitable alternative or restricted duties.
- Do not order X-rays or other imaging for acute non-specific low back pain, unless there are red flags or other clinical reasons to suspect serious spinal pathology.
Do not prescribe opioids for the treatment of acute or chronic pain without assessing the patient’s clinical condition, potential side effects, alternative analgesic options, work status, and capacity to perform safety-critical activities such as driving a motor vehicle.
The College worked with the President and EVOLVE Lead Fellow of AFOEM to compile and refine a list of nine recommendations regarding low-value clinical practices in occupational and environmental medicine. This initial list served as the basis for an online survey. Based on survey responses, each of the nine recommendations was assigned a score and ranked accordingly. Based on the ranking of the initial nine, and the review of newly suggested items, these five low-value practices and interventions were chosen.