Improving Patient Decision-Making in Health Care: A 2012 Dartmouth Atlas Series
Medicine involves decisions. But for Medicare patients with conditions for which surgery is an option, whether they undergo elective surgery depends largely on where they live and the clinicians they see. Research suggests that for many conditions -- especially those that can be treated with elective surgery -- the treatment a patient receives depends more on the physician's recommendations than the patient's preferences. When studying elective surgeries, the Dartmouth Atlas found remarkable variation in these "preference-sensitive" procedures for Medicare patients, even though they had similar conditions. This series, a collaborative project with the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation, looks at the variation in surgical rates in 306 hospital referral regions across the United States. Each report highlights one of nine regions and shows the variation that exists even across these smaller geographic areas. To download data for all regions, please visit our Downloads page.
November 29, 2012
The New England region
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont
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The Middle Atlantic region
New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania
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The South Atlantic region
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia
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The Great Lakes region
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin
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December 12, 2012
The East South Central region
Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee
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The Great Plains region
Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota
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The West South Central region
Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas
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The Mountain states
Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming
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The Pacific states
Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington
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