Oral Presentation Society of Obstetric Medicine of Australia and New Zealand ASM 2018

Low-value interventions in obstetric medicine (#4)

Helen Robinson 1 , Irena Idel 2 , Karin Lust 1 , Catherine Marnoch 3 , Mark Morton 4 , Joanne Said 5 , Jason Soon 6
  1. The Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Herston, QLD, Australia
  2. Obstetric Medicine, Eastern Health, Box Hill, Victoria, Australia
  3. Obstetric Medicine, Auckland District Health Board, Auckland, New Zealand
  4. Obstetric Medicine, Womens and Childrens Hospital, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
  5. Department of Perinatal Medicine Pregnancy Research Centre, The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  6. Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

The Society of Obstetric Medicine of Australia and New Zealand (SOMANZ) in collaboration with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) recently developed a list of low-value interventions in Obstetric Medicine. This project was undertaken as part of the larger EVOLVE project where the RACP worked with multiple special societies to develop these lists. The aim of the EVOLVE project is to reduce health-care spending on tests and interventions that are of low-value to patients.

To develop our list, SOMANZ council conducted a survey of SOMANZ members regarding potential low-value interventions. From this survey the top-5 low-value interventions were selected. These include the use of MTHFR gene, D-Dimer and ESR testing in pregnancy along with thrombophilia tests in placental-mediated complications in pregnancy and repeated testing for proteinuria in established preeclampsia. The interventions have been published on the SOMANZ and RACP websites and have also been discussed in the media.