New Choosing Wisely Champions Program

The ABIM Foundation recently announced the launch of the Choosing Wisely® Champions program, a national initiative to help recognize clinicians who are leading efforts to reduce overuse and waste in medicine. More than a dozen leading medical specialty societies representing a diverse cross-section of health care have committed to participate in the program.

Participating societies will identify clinicians, or teams of clinicians, whose work in their respective specialties represents significant contributions to advancing the goals of the Choosing Wisely campaign by encouraging conversations about avoiding unnecessary care. Such contributions could include creating an intervention to implement Choosing Wisely in their clinical practice, local initiatives to educate colleagues or playing a leadership role in developing society recommendations.

Societies will share their Champions nomination process with their members throughout 2016, with several planning to announce awardees by the end of the year. They plan to recognize their Champions in a variety of ways, including presenting them and their work at annual meetings, in society publications and through speaking opportunities. Through stories of change, more clinicians will hear about ways to bring Choosing Wisely into practice and increase the number of conversations they are having with their patients about what tests and treatments are appropriate.

Participating societies include:

• AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine
• American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
• American Academy of Nursing
• American Academy of Pediatrics
• American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus
• American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine
• American College of Preventive Medicine
• American College of Radiology
• The American Geriatrics Society
• American Medical Society for Sports Medicine
• American Society for Clinical Pathology
• American Society of Echocardiography
• American Society of Hematology
• American Society of Nuclear Cardiology
• American Thoracic Society
• American Urogynecologic Society
• American Urological Association
• The National Physicians Alliance
• Society of Hospital Medicine
• Society for Vascular Medicine