The Czech Internal Medicine Society will discuss the overuse of drugs at the congress today. According to the international project Choosing Wisely, some patients take excessive amounts of medication and undergo unnecessary examinations.
Internists will discuss in which Czech hospitals the problem is the biggest and what changes need to be made.
According to internists, up to thirty percent of costs go to excess care, which does not bring much benefit to patients and, on the contrary, can be harmful.
“On the wards, we routinely encounter patients who take up to ten medications a day and undergo a series of examinations that have little diagnostic value. Doctors often don’t ask what medications to stop, but rather what to put on. Often out of fear of underestimating something,” said internist Petr Grenar, according to ČTK.
According to him, if a patient takes more than five types of medicine, the risk of side effects rises above thirty percent.
According to experts, the overuse is due to doctors’ efforts not to underestimate the health status of patients.
Grenar and his colleagues conducted research at the University Hospital in Hradec Králové, and 95 percent of the respondents answered that, in their opinion, they had completed part of the examination redundantly. The most common were blood sampling, CT examination, X-ray, abdominal ultrasound, EKG or magnetic resonance imaging.
Similar research is also being planned at Prague’s Thomayer Hospital. (ČTK)
