Compassion and variation

If patients living in one area have more diagnoses than those living in another, use more care, but have similar mortality rates, you would think they were simply sicker, but that the extra care they were receiving must be good and making them better. Not so, says new research published on bmj.com. John Wennberg, emeritus professor of community and family medicine at the Dartmouth Institute in the US, joins us to explains how this flawed logic is harmfully perpetuating overdiagnosis and variation in care. Also, post Mid Staffs, how do we put compassion back at the heart of care? A BMJ round table discusses this, and we have edited highlights. The full round table is also available on the podcast page.