Cause for Concern: Study finds significant variations in care between physicians
By JAKE MILLER Harvard Medical School February 2, 2022 Research
Some physicians are far more likely to deliver appropriate care than others in the same geographic area or health care system, according to a new study led by Zirui Song of the Department of Health Care Policy in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School, in collaboration with colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Embold Health, University of Michigan, and Vanderbilt University.
In the study, researchers looked at whether physicians applied evidence-based guidelines to choices they made in common clinical scenarios. The analysis, published Jan. 28 in JAMA Health Forum, found significant, sometimes substantial, differences in how often individual physicians chose the recommended specific treatments or course of action.
“…physicians who made the most clinically appropriate decisions were five to 10 times more likely to use the recommended standard of care than peers in the same specialties and cities whose decisions tended to be the least appropriate. The differences we found are a cause for concern,”
