National Physicians Alliance: The Top 5 Ways To Improve Primary Care; Internal Medicine

1. Don’t obtain blood chemistry panels or urinalyses for screening in healthy adults with no symptoms.
2. Use only generic statins when initiating lipid-lowering drug therapy.
3. Don’t do imaging for low-back pain in the first six weeks unless certain red flags are present.
4. Don’t order annual ECGs or other cardiac screening for low-risk patients with no symptoms.
5. Don’t use DEXA screening for osteoporosis in women under age 65 years or men under 70 with no risk factors.

Source: National Physicians Alliance, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, May 23, 2011
Source URL: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/archinternmed...

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