Improving Patient Decision-Making in Health Care: A 2011 Dartmouth Atlas Report Highlighting Minnesota

February 24, 2011 This report, published by The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, provides an overview of patient decision-making in Minnesota. Whether Medicare patients undergo elective surgery depends largely on where they live and the clinicians they see, according to a new report from the Dartmouth Atlas Project and the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making. Researchers found remarkably wide regional variations in elective surgery for Medicare patients even though they had similar conditions. The report compares the rates of elective, or preference-sensitive, procedures across regions and suggests that differences in clinicians’ personal beliefs and . . .