Low-value Care

Doctors Debate Use of Blood Thinners to Prevent Clots in Women After C-Sections

Abstract: Nearly all women who deliver babies through cesarean section at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City receive injections of the blood thinner heparin for weeks after the procedure, to prevent potentially life-threatening blood clots.

Publication: Kaiser Health News

Date Published: March 17, 2021

Author(s): Harris Meyer

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To eliminate medication overload, serious cultural, educational, and policy changes are needed. This action plan offers recommendations for policymakers, health care institutions, clinicians, and patients across five key categories to reduce harm from multiple medication use. Suggested Citation: Eliminating medication overload: A national action plan. Working Group on Medication Overload. Brookline, MA: The Lown Institute, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46241/LI.YLBW4885

Pharmaceutical marketing is a significant factor in the growing public health crisis of medication overload, which puts millions of older adults at risk of preventable harm and premature death. This issue brief provides recommendations to reduce pharmaceutical industry influence by limiting pharma sales rep visits to clinicians and direct-to-consumer advertising.

This issue brief provides recommendations for clinical practice guidelines and electronic health records that would give clinicians the information they need to appropriately prescribe and deprescribe.