Over the past few years, several do-not-do lists of low-value care have been published in many countries. In the Netherlands, the Medical specialists have drawn up the ‘Verstandige Keuzes’, nurses made a ‘Beter-laten-lijst’. Also the Dutch GPs are currently working on an overview of recommendations which urge to completely restrain from certain types of care or to use them more cautiously.
The purpose of these lists is to draw attention to the various forms of low value care and to encourage healthcare providers to be more cautiously in their application or even to completely stop using them. The problem is, that these lists are often long and do not give insight into the volumes and costs associated with the different forms of low-value care. Knowledge regarding the costs and volumes associated with low-value care practices is important in order to be able to prioritize how to best work on this topic.
The To do or not to do? program is going to map the volumes and costs of several forms of low-value care in the Netherlands by using data obtained from national databases. Together with umbrella organisations for GPs and Medical specialists, the program team is working on a selection of forms of care for which the volume, variation and costs will be examined. As soon as results are available, they will be published here.