Report highlights patchy quality of US health care

The quality of health care in the United States—which arguably provides some of the best health care in the world—is not necessarily as good as it seems, according to a report from an adviser to the Nuffield Trust.

Professor Sheila Leatherman's report, edited by Douglas McCarthy and published by the New York based Commonwealth Fund, highlights the lack of preventive care, medical mistakes, substandard care for chronic conditions, and disparities in care.

It also indicates that the widespread misuse of antibiotics for conditions such as sore throat has led to the emergence of new strains of bacteria that are resistant to treatment with antibiotics. Throughout most of the 1990s the annual percentages of patients visiting their doctor with a …