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The Dartmouth Atlas Debate: Careful Consideration Needed

The worst-kept secret in journalism circles recently was that the New York Times was planning an article critical of the Dartmouth Atlas. Among the main points in the article:

• “The mistaken belief that the Dartmouth research proves that cheaper care is better care is widespread.”

• “The atlas’s hospital rankings do not take into account care that prolongs or improves lives.”

• “Even Dartmouth’s claims about which hospitals and regions are cheapest may be suspect.”

• “Failing to make basic data adjustments undermines the geographic variations the atlas purports to show.”

The Times has also published the correspondence it had with the Dartmouth team about methodology questions.

The Dartmouth team challenges each of these criticisms. The team says the Times made at least five factual errors and several misrepresentations. They write:

“What is truly unfortunate is that the Times missed an opportunity to help educate the American public about what our research actually shows — or about the breadth of agreement about what our findings mean for health care reform.” Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*

How Much Does Technology Improve Health?


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Last week’s CDC report, “Health, United States, 2009” confirms that Americans are increasingly turning to medications, scans, and procedures to improve their health. Exercising, eating right, and weight loss: not so much.

Don’t get me wrong. I love technology as much as the next guy. Maybe more. I’m writing this on a laptop while jetting from California to New York. My iPhone, Blackberry, and Kindle are all within ten feet of me. But my inner Luddite is starting to stir. Read more »

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IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

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I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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