At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, officials said that economic incentives still drive hospitals to think that more is better.

“We have excellent patient outcomes, but it’s at a very high cost,” said Dr. Harry Sax, executive vice chairman for surgery at Cedars-Sinai. “There is still a continued financial incentive to do that test, do that procedure and do something more.”


In addition to financial motives, Sax said, many physicians still practice defensive medicine out of fear of malpractice litigation. Also, some patients and their families expect antibiotics to be prescribed for a sore throat or a CT scan for a bump on the head.

To cut down on needless care, Cedars-Sinai arranged for doctors to be alerted electronically when they ordered tests or drugs that run contrary to 18 Choosing Wisely recommendations.

The hospital analyzed alerts from 26,424 patient encounters from 2013 to 2016. All of the guidelines were followed in 6 percent of those cases, or 1,591 encounters.

Sax said Cedars-Sinai studied the rate of complications, readmissions, length of stay and direct cost of care among the patients in whose cases the guidelines were followed, and compared those outcomes with cases where adherence was less than 50 percent.

In the group that didn’t follow the guidelines, patients had a 14 percent higher incidence of readmission and 29 percent higher risk of complications. Those complications and longer stays increased the cost of care by 7 percent, according to the hospital.

In 2013, the first year of implementation of Choosing Wisely guidelines, Cedars-Sinai said it avoided $6 million in medical spending.

For perspective, Cedars-Sinai is one the largest hospitals in the nation with $3.3 billion in revenue for the fiscal year ending June 30. It reported net income of $301 million.

In Northern California, Sutter has incorporated more than 130 Choosing Wisely recommendations as part of a broader effort to reduce variation in care. In all, Sutter said, it has saved about $66 million since 2011.

That’s a significant sum. However, during the same period, Sutter reported $2.7 billion in profits. Last year alone, it posted an operating profit of $554 million on revenue of nearly $12 billion.

Giusto said her team of employees, tasked with changing physician behavior and eliminating these variations, is separate from administrators who are focused on maximizing reimbursement. She said there can be conflicting forces within a hospital.

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