Regional variations in the use of hospitalization are a fruitful research area pioneered by Wennberg.1 In this issue of the Journal, Perrin and his coworkers2 report important differences in the rates of hospitalization of children in three metropolitan areas — Boston, New Haven, and Rochester (New York) — with the rates in Boston highest and in Rochester lowest. Their study documents large disparities for a range of medical conditions, particularly those that allow the clinician considerable discretion. For surgical conditions, in contrast, variations were smaller and less consistent. The disparities were not explained by differences in the availability of . . .
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Wise et al. (1989) studied this question.
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