Low-value health care remains prevalent in the US despite decades of work to measure and reduce such care. A study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, measured and reported the use of 41 individual low-value services and a composite measure of 28 services for 556 health systems serving over 11,600,000 Medicare beneficiaries across the US.
The study found systems varied widely in the provision of low-value care; those with a smaller proportion of primary care physicians, without a major teaching hospital, serving a larger proportion of non-White patients, headquartered in the South and West, and serving areas with higher health care spending delivered more low-value care.
Read more:
- Low-Value Care at the Actionable Level of Individual Health Systems. JAMA Internal Medicine. September 27, 2021