Outcomes pioneer Jack Wennberg has spent the bulk of his career at Dartmouth, bringing to light unwarranted variations in the delivery of health care, promoting the concept of shared decision-making, and collecting around him a diverse group of scientists and clinician-scholars who are devoted to measuring, organizing, and improving the health-care system. His intellectual bravery and dogged sense of doing right by patients are the focus of a feature in Dartmouth Medicine titled "Braveheart." The work of the center that Wennberg founded has also been the subject of two other recent features: "Making Choice an Option" and "The State of the Nation's Health." The latter article looked at the impact The Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care has had on the national health-policy debate, and Wennberg answered some questions about his work at the time that article was published:

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• What's wrong with the U.S. health-care system?
  
  
• How did you become the founder of outcomes research?
  
  
• What is the Dartmouth Atlas project?
  
  
• What are some major findings of the Dartmouth Atlas?
  
  
• Why are there geographical variations in surgical procedures?
  
  
• Why are there geographical variations in chronic illness care?
  
  
• Have the Dartmouth Atlas findings been controversial?
  
  
• How can more care result in poorer outcomes?
  
  
• What is DHMC doing to address practice variations?