Is smarter medicine primarily intended to reduce health care costs?

 

The organisations involved in the smarter medicine - Choosing Wisely Switzerland association are clearly in favour of the campaign being exclusively for the benefit of patients and not being hijacked by health economics. The primary aim is to find the best treatment for the individual patient according to the motto "the optimal not the maximum medicine". Doctors and patients should ask themselves together whether the treatment really brings a concrete benefit, bears risks or, in the worst case, can even cause harm. If this approach can reduce costs, all the better. If, on the other hand, permanent catheters are no longer inserted in the case of incontinence, for example, this saves care materials and thus money on the one hand, but on the other hand it is likely to increase the need for nursing staff.