If you live in northern Idaho, and you develop back pain, chances are good that you’ll undergo surgery to treat your pain. Move to the southern tip of Texas, however, and the chances that you’ll undergo that same surgery will drop by a factor of 6. The surgery is no more effective in Idaho than it is in Texas. It’s just that doctors in the northwest are more likely than those in southern Texas to recommend surgery. This phenomenon, in which doctors practice medicine differently depending on where they’re from, is called practice pattern variation. And it isn’t limited to treating back pain, or even surgical decisions. There is also variation in treatment for chronic conditions, such as use of beta blockers for individuals with Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) or lipid testing for those with diabetes.〔The Dartmouth Atlas of Healthcare, 1999.〕
Dr. Wennberg and his colleagues at the Dartmouth Center for Evaluative Clinical Sciences have documented these wide variations in how healthcare is practiced around the country. They have also asserted that most of this variation is, in fact, unwarranted. Health Dialog was built to directly address unwarranted variation in healthcare: the overuse, underuse and misuse of medical care. Wennberg and his colleagues further concluded that if unwarranted variation in the healthcare system could be reduced, the quality of care would go up and healthcare costs would go down. Studies have shown that if unwarranted variation could be reduced in the Medicare population, quality of care would rise dramatically and costs could be lowered by as much as 30%.〔Fisher E.S., Wennberg D.E., Stukel T.A., et al. The implications of regional variations in Medicare spending. Part 1. Ann Intern Med. 2003; 138: 273-287.〕