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For more than 20 years, the Dartmouth Atlas Project has documented glaring variations in how medical resources are distributed and used in the United States. The project uses Medicare data to provide comprehensive information and analysis about national, regional, and local markets, as well as individual hospitals and their affiliated physicians.
These reports, used by policymakers, the media, health care analysts and others, have radically changed our understanding of the efficiency and effectiveness of our health care system. This valuable data forms the foundation for many of the ongoing efforts to improve health and health systems across America.
This website provides access to all Atlas reports and publications, as well as interactive tools to allow visitors to view specific regions and perform their own comparisons and analyses.
Payment Reform Can Promote High-Quality Care and Reduce Medicare Spending Growth. Medicare could save money and improve health care quality by providing financial incentives to providers for coordinating patient care through a shared savings program, according to a new paper from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution. Research by Elliott Fisher, Mark McClellan, and colleagues demonstrates that such a program, implemented with the establishment of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), would benefit patients, payers, and providers. The ACO shared savings concept would eliminate waste, reduce overuse and misuse of care, and support the development of health systems that can deliver high quality, affordable care.
To read the paper, click here. Press release
Patients Receiving More Intense Hospital Care are Less Likely to be Satisfied. A recent paper in Health Affairs reinforces and extends earlier studies about the relationship between the intensity of hospital care and the quality of care provided to Medicare beneficiaries. The authors found that patients treated in higher intensity hospitals received lower quality of care and had worse inpatient experiences; for example, they were less likely to have their pain adequately controlled and were less likely to be well-prepared for discharge. Poor care coordination may be the common pathway linking higher intensity with poor quality and worse patient experiences. To read the paper, click here. To download a spreadsheet containing regional patient satisfaction scores, click here.
Expanding Coverage without Increasing Health Care Spending: Dartmouth Institute White Paper Recommends Course for the Obama Administration. A new Dartmouth Atlas white paper makes the case that the United States can extend coverage to the country's uninsured without substantially increasing overall health care costs. The paper argues that the incoming Obama Administration and the Congress can adopt measures that will improve health care quality and patient outcomes, while reducing the growth of health care spending. To download An Agenda for Change: Improving Quality and Curbing Health Care Spending: Opportunities for the Congress and the Obama Administration click here. Press release
Disparities report updated
The Dartmouth Atlas Project has updated its 2008 report on disparities in health and health care among Medicare beneficiaries. Regional and Racial Variation in Health Care among Medicare Beneficiaries, commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Aligning Forces for Quality (AF4Q) program, now includes 2006 data, and also explores variation among hospital service areas. Click here to download the report and read more about the program.
The Dartmouth Atlas responds
The Dartmouth research group was invited by Health Affairs to respond to a series of articles by Richard Cooper in a December web release. A summary of the Dartmouth rebuttal is available here.
Tracking the Care of Patients with Severe Chronic Illness: The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care 2008 is now available!
This edition of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care describes how care for Medicare beneficiaries with serious chronic illness varies across U.S. states, regions and hospitals. The focus is on Medicare beneficiaries who have severe chronic illnesses and are in their last two years of life. The 2008 edition both updates earlier analyses to encompass more recent data and expands the scope to include all sectors of care covered by the Medicare program: acute inpatient hospital care, outpatient services, skilled nursing and long-term hospital care, home health care and hospice.
The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care 2008 also takes another important step - it goes beyond documenting. It proposes new ways of thinking about how to achieve better care coordination and reduce the overuse of acute care hospital services. It also offers concrete recommendations on the ways different stakeholders can use the new Dartmouth Atlas data - from choosing the right provider to reforming the U.S. health care system.
You may purchase a copy; download the report, Executive Summary, or press release; use the interactive data tools; and download hospital performance reports by state.
Data from this edition of the Atlas are featured in Consumer Reports' new online hospital rating tool.
Find your data
Use the links in the Atlas Data Tools menu at left to find state, region, and hospital-specific data. Download prepared tables from our Download page, or make your own tables and graphs using the Data Tools. Descriptions of the tools and step-by-step Help files can be found on the Data Tools page.
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