Optimizing medical care for geriatric patients in Austria: defining a top five list of “Choosing Wisely” recommendations using the Delphi technique

• DOI: 10.1007/s41999-018-0105-8
• Publication Date: 2018-09-27T07:49:26Z
• Authors: Walter Schippinger; Anna Glechner; Karl Horvath; Ulrike Sommeregger; Thomas Frühwald; Peter Dovjak; Georg Pinter; Bernhard Iglseder; Peter Mrak; Walter Müller; Gerald Ohrenberger; Eva Mann; Birgit Böhmdorfer; Regina Roller-Wir...
• Keywords: Delphi Method

Inappropriate use of diagnostic and therapeutic medical procedures is common potentially harmful for older patients. The Austrian Society Geriatrics Gerontology defined a consensus five recommendations to avoid overuse interventions improve care geriatric patients.From an initial pool 147 reliable recommendations, 20 were chosen by structured selection process inclusion in Delphi define list top medicine. 12 experts the field medicine scored two rounds.The final are concerning urinary catheters elderly patients, percutaneous feeding tubes patients with advanced dementia, antipsychotics as first choice treat behavioral psychological symptoms screening breast, colorectal, prostate, or lung cancer, antimicrobials asymptomatic bacteriuria.The selected have potential reduce side effects caused unnecessary procedures, save costs health system.