[Choosing Wisely: from theory to practice].

"Choosing Wisely" is an innovative approach that the Network of Southern Switzerland Public Hospitals has decided to promote. Five standard diagnostic or therapeutic procedures have been chosen to explore the potential benefit of the "Choosing Wisely" initiative: the prescription of benzodiazepines, proton pump inhibitors or antibiotics on discharge from hospital, exposure to ionising radiation in radiological imaging and the number of blood samples taken during hospitalisation. As a first step we compared these variables in the medical and surgical departments of the four major public hospitals in Ticino.