Website maintenance is planned from 8:00 a.m. CDT Saturday, July 27, through 9:00 p.m. CDT Sunday, July 28. Brief disruptions may occur during this time.
Many diagnostic studies (including chest radiographs, arterial blood gases, blood chemistries and counts and electrocardiograms) are ordered at regular intervals (e.g., daily). Compared with a practice of ordering tests only to help answer clinical questions, or when doing so will affect management, the routine ordering of tests increases health care costs, does not benefit patients and may in fact harm them. Potential harms include anemia due to unnecessary phlebotomy, which may necessitate risky and costly transfusion, and the aggressive work-up of incidental and nonpathological results found on routine studies.