Medical Mystery: Why Is Back Surgery So Popular in Casper, Wyo.? – The New York Times

Read article - An opinion piece co-authored by Jonathan Skinner, the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor in Economics, professor of community and family medicine, and of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice; about how innovations in health care diffuse unevenly across geographic regions — not unlike the spread of a contagious disease. And even when studies show a new technology is overused, retrenchment is very slow and seemingly haphazard.