Geographic Variation in Access to Care — The Relationship with Quality

Where a person lives within the United States matters, influencing the ability to obtain health care and the quality of care received, according to a new report. This finding has important implications for national policy reforms and improvement efforts. Three decades of research focused predominantly on costs and the use of services among Medicare beneficiaries has repeatedly found wide regional variations in health care experiences and health system performance. 1 Much less attention has been paid to variations in access to care and their associated implications for quality of care and health outcomes. Our recent Commonwealth Fund report, “Rising to the Challenge: Results from a Scorecard on Local Health System Performance,” 2 shows that when we look beyond state averages, there are staggeringly wide gaps in people's ability to gain access to care in different communities around the country. We also . . .