Variations in the rate of use of common medical procedures/therapies are widely documented. Previous studies tend to focus on variations between either hospitals or geographic areas. Few studies examine within centre practice variations.

There is now a broad consensus among healthcare professionals that the U.S. healthcare delivery system is woefully inefficient and needs to be radically redesigned. Healthcare costs have always been a driving force in policy and management, but quality has become equally important in driving...

Variations in physician practice are pervasive and costly, and may be harmful. The objective of much policy in the West is to increase the interconnectedness of physicians, furthering the transfer of information and thus reducing variation.

The average cesarean section rate in Sweden more than doubled during the 1970s, and amounted to 12-3 percent in 1983. After that, there was a steady-state for a couple of years and towards the end of the 80s even a small decrease, to 10.9 percent in 1990. In the early 90s, there was a slight...