Measures that chart hospital performance often neglect another large facet of healthcare delivery: Unnecessary or overutilized services. That is the conclusion of researchers from Stony Brook Medicine and the Dartmouth Institute, who examined 16 collections dataset collections involving 521 outpatient performance measures. And while more than 90 percent addressed care underuse, only 7 percent addressed overuse of care. And nearly half of the collections involved no data on overuse at all. "Our findings suggest that, by focusing almost single-mindedly on identifying and penalizing underuse, current outpatient performance measures may well foster a culture of 'more is better'--and inadvertently encourage overuse of care," said Stony Brook's Erika Newton, M.D., in a statement. Read the full article at FierceHealthcare