Access to healthcare is highest in Massachusetts, lowest in Texas, finds scorecard

A new healthcare performance scorecard on access, costs, quality, and outcomes in 306 service “markets” in the United States is providing a better view of local health systems than previous data, which often were aggregated at the state level.

It found wide disparities, often twofold to threefold differences, between cities such as San Francisco and Seattle that ranked in the top quartile, and Houston and Miami that ranked in the bottom quartile on some key measures.

“Where you live matters, and it shouldn’t,” said David Radley, the senior author of the Scorecard on Local Health System Performance at the Commonwealth Fund, which sponsors the …