Many Pre-Surgery Tests Are Useless, So Why Are They Still Done?
Patients facing relatively simple outpatient surgeries are nonetheless being told to undergo a number of preoperative tests that just aren’t necessary, a new study reports.
More than half of a group of patients facing low-risk outpatient surgery received one or more tests — blood work, urinalysis, an electrocardiogram (EKG), a chest X-ray — prior to their operation.
One-third of patients underwent at least two tests, and roughly 1 in 7 patients had three or more tests before their simple surgery, said lead researcher Dr. Nicholas Berlin, a surgeon and health policy expert at the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
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