Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital is using the big data sets it is generating from its Epic electronic medical record to look at areas highlighted by the Choosing Wisely initiative as being care of low value, including the unnecessary ordering of chest x-rays and medications such as antibiotics and anti-asthmatics in babies with the viral infection bronchiolitis.
RCH, which went from a mainly paper-based system to a fully electronic medical record when it implemented Epic in 2016, has received a grant from Better Care Victoria to study five areas of low-value care highlighted by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians' paediatrics and child health division, and is now at the stage of being able to develop targeted interventions to reduce unnecessary tests and prescribing.