It’s a test fictional doctors on medical dramas like Grey’s Anatomy often dramatically order at the beginning of an episode: the ECG or EKG, short for electrocardiogram.It saves lives — both onscreen and off. But when done unnecessarily it can cause patients harm, and waste money in a public system where there never seems to be enough to go around. And it’s not the only test or procedure that experts sometimes question.A committee of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), which represents the political and economic interests of 31,500 doctors in the province, and the Ministry of Health has been tasked with finding $460 million in savings by 2021 through eliminating or restricting inappropriate or overused physician services. Dubbed the “Appropriateness Working Group,” it was a condition of a February 2019 decision from an arbitration board that ended a more than four-year battle for a new contract for doctors. The Star is looking at unnecessary health care, and some of the most commonly used tests and procedures among top billers, as part of Operation Transparency, a series aimed at pulling back the veil of secrecy on physicians who receive the most from the public purse.It’s not that the ECG, which measures the electrical activity of the heart through electrodes, is inherently bad, but cardiologists have recommended not ordering it routinely for low-risk patients without symptoms. Medical experts from across specialties agree there are some tests and procedures that have little impact on patient outcomes when done under the wrong circumstances. They can cause false positives, which trigger more tests; or they can involve anesthesia, which always carries a small risk. Some, like chest X-rays, expose patients to low levels of radiation.“There’s an increase in the realization of something called low-value care, meaning that there’s a lot of traditional health care that’s provided that doesn’t ...
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