title: Evaluating the efficiency of california providers in caring for patients with chronic illnesses.
abstract: In this paper we compare the relative efficiency of health care providers in managing patients with severe chronic illnesses over fixed periods of time. To minimize the contribution of differences in severity of illness to differences in care management, we evaluate performance over fixed intervals prior to death for patients who died during a five-year period, 1999-2003. Medicare spending, hospital bed and full-time equivalent (FTE) physician inputs, and utilization varied extensively between regions, among hospitals located within a given region, and among hospitals belonging to a given hospital system. The data point to important opportunities to improve efficiency.
authors.affiliation: Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences, Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. john.wennberg@dartmouth.edu
authors.forename: John E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Wennberg
authors.forename: Elliott S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Fisher
authors.forename: Laurence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Baker
authors.forename: Sandra M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Sharp
authors.forename: Kristen K
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Bronner
mesh_terms: D002140:California; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000628:therapy*; D016208:Databases, Factual; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans