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Article: Lost cause, found savings? Chronically ill may get too much treatment: study.
- Article from:
- Modern Healthcare
- Article date:
- May 22, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Crain Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Jennifer Lubell
Hospitals that treat patients more intensively and use up more Medicare dollars don't necessarily get better results, according to a study that analyzed the care of chronically ill patients across the U.S.
That's because the majority of acute-care hospitals are practicing "rescue medicine'' for patients in the advanced stages of incurable diseases, said John Wennberg, director of Dartmouth Medical School's Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences and principal investigator of the Dartmouth Atlas Project, which conducted the study. Funding for the study was provided by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
"The costs of ...