In Health Care More is Not Better

This week, NHPR launches Project Health, a 3-year effort to follow developments in the debate over health care.
It is a debate dominated by concern that costs will continue to rise and quality will drop.
That fear assumes that spending more gets you more.
But recent work by researchers at Dartmouth Medical School throws that assumption into doubt.
Dr. Elliott Fisher led a 5-year study that found that in health care, more is not better.
In fact, Fisher estimates that as much at 30% of all treatment is unneeded.
He ranked every hospital center in the country from places with the lowest spending to those with the highest.
Speaking with NHPR’s Jon Greenberg, he says, the high spending areas all had one thing in common.

The complete report as published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
http://www.annals.org/issues/v138n4/toc.html