Clancy on Accelerating Quality Improvement

Hospital associations in Michigan and South Carolina guide members' efforts to boost quality and the health of their states' citizens.

Nearly a decade after the Institute of Medicine called attention to the problem of health disparities, gaps continue to exist in access and quality of care. But providers are proving that those gaps can be closed if they are armed with relevant and actionable data.

Harvard economist Michael Chernew argues that the attention being given to geographic variation is misguided and distracting from improving care at the facility level.