Does a Theory-Based Intervention to Improve Accountability Reduce Low-Value Preoperative Investigations in Patients Undergoing Low Risk Surgery?

Low-value care is defined as a test or treatment for which there is no evidence of patient benefit or where there is evidence of more harm than benefit.

Within Canada, provincial governments have made reducing low-value care a priority. Choosing Wisely Canada (CWC) is a professionally led campaign that rallies medical professionals to address the issue of low-value care. The CWC makes declarative statements about low-value cares that should be avoided in practice across a broad range of specialties. To date, over 70 Canadian medical specialty societies have developed over 350 recommendations pertaining to unnecessary tests, treatments, and procedures.

Successful de-implementation of low value care require key actors (patients, healthcare providers, managers and policymakers) to change their behaviours and/or decisions while working in complex healthcare environments. Interventions to translate evidence into practice can be effective with the application of behavioural approaches. Behavioural sciences have informed methods for identifying factors that explain and influence behaviour, selecting techniques to address the barriers, and reporting behaviour change interventions. These approaches have yet to be explicitly applied in a systematic and theory-based manner to inform interventions for reducing low-value care.

To address this gap, Grimshaw and colleagues developed the Choosing Wisely De-Implementation Framework (CWDIF), a systematic process framework that uses tools from behavioural science to guide the design, evaluation, and scalability of interventions to reduce low-value care. The CWDIF consists of five phases: Phase 0, identification of potential areas of low-value healthcare; Phase 1, identification of local priorities for implementation of CWC recommendations (i.e., de-implementing low-value care); Phase 2, identification of barriers to implementing CWC recommendations and potential interventions to overcome these; Phase 3, rigorous evaluations of CWC implementation programmes; and Phase 4, spread of effective CWC implementation programmes.

In Canada, CWC provides a list of items that are considered low-value care for each medical specialty and provincial CWC campaigns have prioritized the items that are relevant to each province (Phase 0). The Canadian Anesthesiologists Society made 3 CWC recommendations against routine pre-operative tests prior to low risk surgery. In 2015, CWC and Health Quality Ontario co-hosted a stakeholder event of 60 key health system leaders in Ontario who identified low value preoperative testing, such as electrocardiographs and chest X-rays prior to low risk surgery as a key priority (Phase 1). Having identified the local priorities, it is important to identify determinants (barriers and enablers) of the particular low-value care that can be address by intervention (Phase 2). A theory-based qualitative study with Ontario anesthesiologists and surgeons used the Theoretical Domains Framework to understand individual, socio-cultural, and environmental factors that influence behaviour in specific contexts. Barriers identified included conflict about who was responsible for the test-ordering (Social/professional role and identity), inability to cancel tests ordered by fellow physicians (Beliefs about capabilities and Social influences), and logistic problems with tests being completed before the anesthesiologists see the patient (Beliefs about capabilities and Environmental context and resources). There were also concerns that not testing might be associated with harms (Beliefs about Consequences). These findings led to the development of a theory-informed intervention that identifies anesthesiologists as the primary focus for ordering of tests and strengthens accountability within hospitals.