This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Researchers find higher-spending hospitals have fewer deaths among emergency patients

Add topic to email alerts

Receive an email when new articles are posted on

Please provide your email address to receive an email when new articles are posted on .

Subscribe

Added to email alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

You've successfully added to your alerts. You will receive an email when new content is published.

Click Here to Manage Email Alerts

Back to Healio

We were unable to process your request. Please try again later. If you continue to have this issue please contact customerservice@slackinc.com.

Back to Healio

Higher-spending hospitals demonstrated fewer deaths for their emergency patients, according to a study from researchers at Vanderbilt and released as a working paper through the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“At least for emergency, acute patients in our study, overall mortality was reduced 20% to 30% in higher-spending hospitals,” researcher John Graves, PhD, stated in a Vanderbilt University Medical Center news release. “Doing more in the hospital, including being treated in a teaching or high technology hospital, has a positive impact on outcomes.”

According to the working paper abstract, Graves and his team analyzed Medicare ambulance and hospital data from 2002 to 2008, finding higher-cost hospitals demonstrated significantly lower 1-year mortality rates when compared with lower-cost hospitals.

According to the release, the researchers found treatment in a teaching hospital reduced the risk of death within 1 year by 4%, while the most technologically advanced hospitals reduced risk of death by 4.7%. Additionally, high levels of initial treatment intensity in emergency situations were found to reduce risk by 18%.

Graves noted in the release that while his study doesn’t discount the idea that there is wasteful spending, it provides evidence that some hospitals spending more on acute or emergent care can demonstrate better survival outcomes.

“An efficient hospital, a high acuity hospital, and a technologically advanced hospital all will exhibit high cost structures, and each may or may not be better at saving lives,” Graves stated in the release. “The challenge is being able to ‘unbundle’ the complex cost-mortality association and pinpoint areas that can be improved upon to lower costs without harming quality.”

Reference:

• Doyle JJ, Graves JA, Gruber J, Kleiner S. Do high-cost hospitals deliver better care? Evidence from ambulance referral patterns. National Bureau of Economic Research working paper #17936. March 2012.