Profession
Dr. Wennberg receives Codman Award
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Jan. 7, 2008
John E. Wennberg, MD, MPH, received the Joint Commission's Ernest Amory Codman Award in November 2007 in recognition of his pioneering research on regional variations in medical care. Dr. Wennberg, director of the Center for Evaluative Clinical Services at Dartmouth Medical School, also has been a leader in research on shared decision-making and the outcomes of medical treatment.
Dr. Wennberg's research, dating back to the early 1970s, has shown that variations in medical care are related primarily to physicians' preferences. Those preferences, he discovered, affect both the quality and the cost of patient care. Dr. Wennberg founded the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care Web site (link), which uses Medicare claims data to report where Americans get medical care, the kind of care they receive, and the outcomes of that care.
Dr. Codman, known as the father of outcomes measurement in medicine, founded the American College of Surgeons' accreditation program known today as the Joint Commission.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/01/07/prbf0107.htm.












