Does efficiency and quality of care affect hospital closures?

Abstract

In recent decades, a large number of hospitals in Pennsylvania and across the United States have been forced to close entirely, or to transform their beds for alternative uses including outpatient care. Hospital closures have severe repercussions for the stakeholders. A better understanding of hospital closures could help take corrective measures to alleviate the adverse impact closures have on communities. Using Pennsylvania Department of Health data compiled from various sources, we address the following questions: Are less efficient hospitals less likely to survive in the long run? What are the effects of quality of care on hospital closures? Does teaching status and location (urban or rural) have any impact on the probability of hospital closure? The result demonstrates several factors of varying significance affect hospital closures/survivals. Hospitals with higher ratio of registered nurses per bed, higher operating margin, lower percentage of revenues from Medicare and Medicaid, and lower competition were less likely to close. Efficiency measures such as DEA efficiency, cost per patient day, and cost per discharge were not found to have a significant impact on hospital closures. The results suggest that hospital administrators may focus more on quality of care and less on cost reduction and efficiency.

Risk of hospital insolvency and its relationship with income and borrowings from banks: a case–control study with large-scale financial data in Japan

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“…In addition, critical-access hospitals (Holmes et al 2013), not-for-profit status (Ly and Cutler 2018), and joining a hospital system are known to be positively associated with hospital profitability (Ly and Cutler 2018;Büchner et al 2016;O'Hanlon et al 2019), although affiliation may reduce access to services for patients in rural areas (O'Hanlon et al 2019). Furthermore, nurses and doctors are crucial to maintain the quality of healthcare services provided at hospitals (Pai et al 2017;Boakye et al 2019;Tasi et al 2019). Interpersonal support and supervisory support are positively associated with nurse/employee engagement and their retention (Boakye et al 2019).…”

Identifying the Factors Associated With Inpatient Admissions for Non-COVID-19 Illnesses

“…The authors conducted an extensive literature search to generate the specific theoretical framework of this research using the main variables associated with non-COVID-19 inpatient admissions. Some of the key variables included in the study are consistent with existing literature in the healthcare, and operations management areas are (Deily et al, 2000;Kim, 2010;Mullner et al, 1986;Pai et al, 2019):…”

Analysis of hospital performance from the point of view of sanitary standards: study of Bagira General Referral Hospital in DR Congo

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