[[{“type”:“media”,“view_mode”:“media_large”,“fid”:null,“attributes”:{“class”:“media-image alignright size-full wp-image-1615”,“typeof”:“foaf:Image”,“style”:“”,“width”:“100”,“height”:“100”,“alt”:“Wall Street Journal”}}]]Medicine is largely based on numbers and statistics. But Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Spine Center is bringing feelings and other difficult-to-measure elements into the mix.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, the Spine Center is at the forefront of an effort to bring quality of life into the discussion around health care treatment options.

The Center gives a questionnaire about emotion and daily life to patients on their first visit and on subsequent visits more than six weeks apart.

“For us, it is as important as looking at an X-ray or an MRI,” said Spine Center Medical Director William Abdu. “We pick up information that patients are generally not planning to share with us.”

Read the full story, published 1/31/12 by The Wall Street Journal.