The Dartmouth Atlas Project
The Dartmouth Atlas Project documents glaring variations in how medical resources are distributed and used in the United States. The project uses Medicare data to provide information and analysis about national, regional, and local markets, as well as hospitals and their affiliated physicians. This research has helped policymakers, the media, health care analysts, and others improve their understanding of our health care system. The Atlas is a critical tool in many of the ongoing efforts to improve health and health systems throughout the United States.
Data and Analytic Core
Dartmouth's Data and Analytic Core (DAC) is dedicated to improving value-driven health care through innovative “Big Data” analytic insights for Dartmouth College faculty leading health services research projects. The DAC maintains a highly secure environment for health care datasets provided by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, state governments, and other organizations.
The DAC is committed to:
• Investing in our team of highly competent people coming from diverse backgrounds and actively engaged in health services research.
• Safeguarding the data through responsible and proactive adherence to stringent security and compliance protocols.
• Ensuring data integrity with consistent data stewardship through evolving training and accountability for error detection, documentation, and auditing processes.
• Leveraging technology and tools that advance analytic opportunities, distinguishable data visualization, and emerging data management platforms.
Center for Program Design and Evaluation
The Center for Program Design and Evaluation at Dartmouth (CPDE) provides expertise in program design and evaluation for a wide range of research grants and programs locally, nationally and internationally. Projects generally fall within the following four program areas: infrastructure and capacity building; multi-site education and training; program, policy, and curriculum evaluation; public health and health care.
Option Grid
Option Grid™ is a powerful new decision aid, meant be shared between the clinician and patient to begin the conversation about what treatment option is right for them. Developed by Dartmouth shared decision-making researchers, Option Grid ™ transforms the clinical encounter from a top-down encounter to a collaborative exploration of what's best for the patient.
CollaboRATE
Measuring the level of shared decision making in the clinical encounter from the patient's perspective is an important part of assessing health care quality and provider performance. Dartmouth researchers developed CollaboRATE, a fast and frugal patient-reported measure of shared decision making, to enable this assessment. CollaboRATE contains three brief questions that patients, their parents, or their representatives complete following a clinical encounter. CollaboRATE is suitable for use both in research and in routine health care delivery.
Observer OPTION
Many studies show that patients are infrequently involved in decisions. Although there is agreement that decision making should be 'shared' with patients, the exact nature of that process remains unclear. OPTION is a tool that facilitates progress in this area by measuring the extent to which clinicians involve patients in decision-making.
IntegRATE
Dartmouth researchers have developed IntegRATE, which measures the level of integration in health care delivery from the patient's perspective—an important part of assessing health care quality and provider performance.