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Unwarranted Variation
Unwarranted variation (or geographic variation) in health care service delivery refers to medical practice pattern variation that cannot be explained by illness, medical need, or the dictates of evidence-based medicine. It is one of the causes of low value care often ignored by health systems. Definition Unwarranted variation (or geographic variation) in health care service delivery refers to differences that cannot be explained by personal preference, illness, medical need, or the dictates of evidence-based medicine. The term was coined by Dr. John Wennberg. Unwarranted variation reveals three areas: * Overuse of treatments (or overutilisation) such that more harm than good is being done *Underuse of treatments such that cost-effective interventions are not being provided *Inequity of care (a subset of underuse) such that parts of the population are not accessing treatment, possibly because of their social background. Supply-sensitive care, which is strongly correlated with heal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wennberg
John E. "Jack" Wennberg (born June 2, 1934) is the pioneer and leading researcher of unwarranted variation in the healthcare industry. In four decades of work, Wennberg has documented the geographic variation in the healthcare that patients receive in the United States. In 1988, he founded the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Dartmouth Medical School (now The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth) to address that unwarranted variation in healthcare. He is the Peggy Y. Thomson Professor Emeritus in the Evaluative Clinical Sciences & Founder and Director Emeritus of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice (formerly the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences), and has been Professor in the Department of Community and Family Medicine since 1980 and in the Department of Medicine since 1989. Wennberg is the founding editor of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, a series of reports on ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |