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Overprescribing has attained prominence as a safety issue due to the current opioid epidemic, but it has long reduced medication safety across the spectrum of health care. The report examines the systemic and cultural issues that contribute to overprescribing and recommends a governmental leadership position to drive change and implement deprescribing and other reduction initiatives.

Polypharmacy is a known challenge to patient safety. This collective program encourages long-term care organizations, physicians, and pharmacists to take part in a learning network to share aggregated data, lessons learned, and educational opportunities to reduce medication adverse events through safe deprescribing. 

The overprescribing of prescription opioids heightens the likelihood of opioid dependence and harm. This report shares data from 25 countries to provide a baseline for the current crisis. The publication illustrates the complexity of the opioid epidemic and suggests that system-focused multisector strategies are required to address the problem.

Overdiagnosis and the subsequent overuse of medical care contributes to unnecessary financial, psychological, and physical risk to patients. This research collaborative draws from expertise and experience from organizations in Australia investigating the problem of overdiagnosis and testing solutions to prevent medical care overuse.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Quality Indicators (QIs) represent quality measures that make use of a hospital's available administrative data. The Inpatient Quality Indicators include inpatient mortality for certain procedures and medical conditions; utilization of procedures for which there are questions of underuse, overuse, and misuse; and volume of procedures for which evidence suggests that a higher volume is associated with lower mortality.