Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Feature Shared Decision Making

Can doctors reduce harmful medical overuse worldwide?

BMJ 2014; 349 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g4289 (Published 03 July 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g4289

Rapid Response:

The key point in this article is that doctors have a role in reducing harm and waste by avoiding over diagnosis and over treatment. The article is timely too as we are into a new global health agenda that is making a lot of noise - universal health coverage (UHC). The way forward to make UHC a reality with the demographic transition of having more people living longer is to use our scarce resources wisely and avoid waste. I hope 'Choose wisely' gains worldwide momentum among all forms of health care providers.

Competing interests: No competing interests

08 July 2014
Mathew K Jose
retired physician
none
7A Link Manor Kochi , India