|
|
|
|
 |
||
|
Medical Practice Variation  The Dartmouth Atlas Researchers involved with the Dartmouth Atlas Project have been providing continuous feedback of population-based information describing resource inputs, utilization and outcomes of care among the 3,436 hospital service areas and 306 hospital referral regions in the United States.
Using up to 12 years of Medicare data, the Dartmouth Atlas Project is a rich source of information that can be used in evaluate the performance of the national, regional, and local health care systems. Much of the variation among areas in per capita resource inputs and utilization has proven to be unwarranted; it cannot be adequately explained on the basis of differences among regions in illness rates, patient preferences or the dictates of evidence-based medicine. The problem of unwarranted variation has attracted wide attention from the press, policy makers and clinicians interested in quality improvement and health care reform. It has led to recently-passed legislation promoting demonstration projects to deal with unwarranted variations among the Medicare population. Of particular importance to the debate over health care reform is the recently published DAP finding that populations living in regions with greater levels of spending and greater use of physician visits and hospitalizations do not experience better health care outcomes or better quality of care. |
|
|
|
| © 2006 Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making, Inc | 40 Court Street, Suite 300, Boston, MA 02108 |