Choosing Wisely Philippines (CWP) builds on work from the Choosing Wisely (CW) initiatives in the United States, Canada, India and Africa and aims to identify low-value and unnecessary practices that result in inferior outcomes. 

The Clinical Consensus Committee of the PSMO is the society’s arm in developing position statements that provide clinical guidance to its members. The nine committee members are situated in the three different island groups of the Philippines to ensure representation of the different regional contexts and practices. The scope of the initial list of the position statements considered included practices from cancer diagnosis, treatment and palliative and supportive care.

Creating the CWP statements is only the first step in efforts to decrease the delivery of low-value care in the Philippines, which will hopefully reduce the financial burden associated with cancer care. To further strengthen its reach, the PSMO in partnership with ecancer will be crafting scientific modules of each of the key recommendations.

In addition, PSMO and ecancer will be holding a 2-day summit in the Philippines on the first quarter of 2023 where multiple oncology practitioners and patient groups around the country will be invited to discuss the CWP key recommendations together with other topics.

Read the full article here.