Variations in medical practice have been widely documented and are a linchpin in explanations of health disparities. Evidence shows that clinical decision making varies according to patient, provider and health system characteristics. However, less is known about the processes underlying these...

Objectives To (1) examine the influence of patient and provider attributes on physicians' diagnostic certainty and (2) assess the effect of diagnostic certainty on clinical therapeutic actions.Methods Factorial experiment of 128 generalist physicians using identical clinically authentic...

Primary health care is essential to population health and there is increasing need for it, especially with an aging population with multiple comorbidities. Primary health care in the U.S. is widely considered in an ever-deepening crisis. This paper presents a detailed case study of the recent...

In recent decades, an interdisciplinary quality assurance (QA) movement has emerged in health care studies, which has included increased attention to medical errors. Implicit in this QA effort is a conflict between (1) external agents encouraging the medical profession to adopt strategies for...