Just returned from a presentation by Dr. Elliott Fisher, Professor of Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School, on “Spending, Quality and the Paradox of Plenty”, where he addresses the problem of rising health care costs, poor quality and declining access to healthcare. His research and association with the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care Project focuses on examining the differences in spending and medical practice patterns across regions in the U.S..Not surprising, but always interesting are findings that are counterintuitive to those outside of the healthcare industry. For example, that higher spending regions in the country generally suffer from worse technical quality of care, slightly higher mortality, lower patient satisfaction with hospital care, and patient perceptions of worse access to primary care. Physicians in these regions also perceive greater difficulty in ensuring both the quality and continuity of healthcare.
See my complete post over at the World Health Care Blog.
