Campaigns targeting ‘low value’ care should shift focus from doctors to patients, who can be educated to ask the right questions, says a leading doctor.

Strategies aimed at educating patients have been shown to be more effective than those targeting doctors, writes Professor Ian Scott, director of internal medicine and clinical epidemiology at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane.

Yet campaigns such as Choosing Wisely Australia and the Royal Australasian College of Physicians’ EVOLVE program continue to focus on telling doctors not to do some commonly overused interventions, Professor Scott and colleagues say in the Medical Journal of Australia.

“[The] evidence appears stronger and impact seems greater for strategies directed to, or mediated by, patients”, they argue in an opinion piece.