Wasteful care refers to healthcare practices that do not provide value to patients and can include unnecessary tests, treatments, or procedures. This can be due to various factors such as:
Overuse of Resources: Performing tests or treatments that are not needed or are unlikely to benefit the patient.
Inefficiency: Ineffective use of time or resources that do not contribute to improved patient outcomes.
Variability in Practice: Differences in care practices that lead to inconsistent patient outcomes without clear evidence of benefit.
Lack of Coordination: Fragmented care where different providers or services do not communicate effectively, leading to redundant or conflicting interventions.
Reducing wasteful care is important for improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare. Strategies to address it can include implementing evidence-based guidelines, improving care coordination, and utilizing decision-support tools to ensure that the care provided is appropriate and beneficial for the patient.
Padula et al. in an article, examine how avoidable complications, post-acute healthcare use, revision surgery, and readmissions among spine surgery patients contribute to $67 million of wasteful spending on value defects. Furthermore, they estimated that almost $27 million of these costs could be recuperated simply by redirecting patients to facilities referred to as centers of excellence. In total, quality improvement efforts are costly to implement but may only cost about $36 million to fully correct the $67 million in finances misappropriated to value defects. The objective of this article is to present an approach to eliminate defects in spine surgery, including a center of excellence framework for eliminating defects specific to this group of procedures 1)