Choosing Wisely® is a national initiative helping physicians and patients have conversations about the overuse of tests and procedures and supporting physician efforts to help patients make smart and effective care choices. In 2013, the Alliance received a grant from ABIM Foundation to advance the goals of the Choosing Wisely campaign in Washington state. That work launched with a kickoff summit, bringing together health care leaders from across the state.

National leader

We’re proud to be able to say our state has been a leader in the Choosing Wisely campaign. In 2014, we released the first state-level report in the nation to measure appropriate use of select Choosing Wisely recommendations. Our findings showed that patients in Washington state may be exposed to unnecessary care. The report, Less Waste, Less Harm: Choosing Wisely in Washington State, offers county-by-county results for nine different Choosing Wisely recommendations. We’ve also highlighted four delivery systems that are using Choosing Wisely to reduce low-value care in our Spotlight on Improvement series.

Task Force promotes behavior change and measurable improvement

In 2013, The Washington Health Alliance partnered with the Washington State Medical Association and the Washington State Hospital Association to form a task force committed to ensuring safe, high-quality health care for patients in Washington state through reducing health care overuse and waste.

The task force members are health care leaders from the major health delivery systems and health plans in Washington state. The Washington State Choosing Wisely Task Force strives to change behaviors and create measurable improvement through a variety of tactics: education, outreach, building practice models and frameworks and developing resources and toolkits for providers and health care systems.

One of the early successes of the Task Force was developing the Choosing Wisely Claims-Based Technical Specifications, a set of measures that could be used to evaluate provider implementation of Choosing Wisely recommendations. The Task Force also created the Choosing Wisely Action Manual to help providers use the results from the Choosing Wisely report to make improvements in their own practices.

Making sure employers are “choosing wisely”

While much of the work of the Alliance has been focused on changing provider practice, we know that health care purchasers are important stakeholders when it comes to overuse and waste. For that reason, we’ve made available to our purchaser members the Choosing Wisely Employer Toolkit and incorporated Choosing Wisely into our Own Your Health campaign, a resource for purchaser members to help their employees become more engaged in their own health care decision-making.

Learn more

• Washington State Choosing Wisely Task Force
• Washington Health Alliance and Choosing Wisely
• Washington State Medical Association and Choosing Wisely
• ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely campaign website