My lede:

The information patients typically use when looking for a new doctor is not very helpful in determining physician quality, according to a new study of more than 10,000 Massachusetts physicians caring for 1.1 million patients.

Researchers found little correlation between physician performance on 124 process-based quality measures in 30 clinical areas and characteristics such as medical education, board certification, malpractice claim payments and disciplinary actions commonly listed by health plans and consumer websites.

Read the whole shebang.