Study: Data on doctors may not reflect quality

NEW YORK – Most of the information that consumers have available to them in choosing a doctor, such as what medical school they attended, years of experience and malpractice claims, is not helpful in determining the quality of care given, a new study shows.
The study, supported by the Commonwealth Fund and published in the Sept. 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, found little connection between those factors and doctors’ performance on clinical measures, such as how often they give the proper medications, recommend the right screening test and give the right follow-up care.
“This research highlights a serious problem for health care consumers, which is that we are currently looking for doctors who provide quality care in a vacuum– with information that is not relevant, and can even be misleading,” said Dr. Anne-Marie Audet, vice president for health-system quality and efficiency at the Commonwealth Fund.
The article recommends making clinical performance data available to consumers.
The study was conducted by RAND Corp. and University of Pittsburgh researchers.
For more information, go to www.commonwealthfund.org. •