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May 10, 2006
Upcoming Release of Dartmouth Atlas Results -
May 16
On Tuesday, May 16, the Dartmouth Atlas Project of the Center for the
Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School will release a report
on variation in medical practice and cost for select Medicare patients. The
report covers Medicare patients in their last 6 and 24 months with one of 12
chronic diseases for hospitals with more than 400 deaths from 1999 through 2003.
The report will rank hospitals within their state and region and focus on
the costs of providing care in the last months of a patient’s life. As noted in
the American Hospital Association’s Advisory, "the report suggests that Medicare
could save billions of dollars by correcting ‘inefficiencies.’"
There are many issues with the methodology and the approach of assigning a
patient’s total cost to the most frequently admitted hospital. Not only does the
hospital that the patient most frequently visited get assigned the Medicare
costs of care for their hospital but also they are assigned the Medicare costs
for any hospital or physician that the patient visited. This is why it has been
so difficult, and impossible, for hospitals to try and individually replicate
this study. There are also many other methodological approaches that have been
applied to the data in this study that make it impossible for providers to
replicate.
According to Dr. Wennberg, Director of Dartmouth Atlas Project, all hospital
specific data, rankings, and reports will be available to the public on the
morning of Tuesday, May 16. All information will be accessible on their web site
at: http://www.dartmouthatlas.org.
Several reporters have already been briefed by the Dartmouth researchers and
have advanced copies of all of the data --- which means a news story could
appear as early as Tuesday morning, May 16.
IHA urges hospitals to review the study on your hospital specific information
sent to you several weeks ago. To view the American Hospital Association’s
Advisory and Frequently Asked Questions on the study prepared by Dartmouth
Researchers, click on the links below.
Dartmouth Atlas Backgrounder
Frequently Asked Questions
AHA Advisory - Talking Points
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