Estimating the Value of Health Care Where You Live
<p>Health care quality and spending are both national concerns, but health care is delivered locally. To facilitate comparisons at the state and local levels, The Commonwealth Fund has updated its Quality–Spending Interactive.</p><p>Our tool shows the “relative value” of care—quality gained for dollars spent—for people 65 and older who are enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare.</p>
<p>For example, Seattle performs relatively well overall, with 18 percent lower spending and 18 percent higher quality than the median for all localities. Yet, Seattle could do better. Down the coast, Santa Barbara achieves 34 percent better quality than the median for about the same as what Seattle spends. Seattle residents would enjoy a 16-percentage-point jump in their quality of care, on average, if their area performed as well as Santa Barbara.</p>
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