New study links hospital privatization to worse patient care

[Jim__]

The study is based on information from different high income nations including the US. The full article in The Lancet Public Health is here.

From MedicalXpress

A new review has concluded that hospitals that are privatized typically deliver worse quality care after converting from public ownership. The study, led by University of Oxford researchers, has been published today in The Lancet Public Health.

Lead author Dr. Benjamin Goodair, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford, said, "This review challenges the justifications for health care privatization and concludes that the scientific support for health care privatization is weak. Overall, hospital privatization may reduce costs, but does so at expense of quality of care."

The researchers carried out a meta-analysis based on evidence from 13 longitudinal studies, covering a range of high-income countries. Each study assessed quality of health care measures for patients before and after health service privatization, at either the hospital or regional level. The studies included measured indicators of care quality which included staffing levels, patient mix by insurance type, the number of services provided, workload for doctors, and health outcomes for patients such as avoidable hospitalizations.

Increases in privatization generally corresponded with worse quality of care, with no studies included in the review finding unequivocally positive effects on health outcomes. Additionally, hospitals converting from public to private ownership status tended to make higher profits. This was mainly achieved by reducing staff levels and reducing the proportion of patients with limited health insurance coverage.

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[no_hypocrisy]

1. Private hospitals aren't about efficiency,

Smart budgets, and/or productivity.

They are about profits at any cost.

[Voltaire2]

2. no shit.

For profit healthcare is invariably going to result in shittier healthcare.

[samnsara]

3. i worked for a hospital that became a private for profit organization...

the first thing that happened was my program was cut. The new owners didnt feel it necessary to have a home visiting team for low income high risk new moms. Then they cut the OB dept. Then they traded out RNs for LPNs and LPNs for CNAs. Then the bedding was changed less often and eventually the hospital went bankrupt which left that town with one hospital (for the county).

'My' hospital was in the Pacific Northwest and the company who bought in..and ran it into the ground...was from N Carolina.

Isnt there..shouldnt there..be one standard of care across ALL hospitals for the whole country? I believe the org was called Health Care associates. Anyone hear of them?

[Freddie]

5. Joint Commission of Hospital Accreditation

Or something like that. They’d come inspect every year and it was a huge deal. This was Pennsylvania, not sure if it’s nationwide.

[Freddie]

4. Saw this first-hand

Used to work for a nonprofit community hospital. Was sold to a for-profit chain in 2002. First thing they did was fire the Director of Nursing because she was very conscientious about quality of patient care. Their #1 concern was limiting payroll regardless of needs or census. So naturally many nurses quit and they had to use agency nurses at 2x the cost. After 4 years they figured out they weren’t going to make a profit and sold the hospital to a highly regarded regional nonprofit chain.

[Simeon Salus]

6. This is the open looting of the healthcare industry by private vulture investors with no Congress to stop them

The Affordable Care Act put US resources into getting folks insured, allowing more to be covered and bills to be paid

Healthcare providers immediately became revalued upward and the industry grew, drawing investment as the potential for profit became obvious.

Investors chose to put their money into insurance and the healthcare industries, reaping the rewards of a market flush with new insured and more reliable payment. Prices on the healthcare services steadily rose to please these new investors.

Investors started buying up healthcare providers all across the country, squeezing profit wherever they saw it. Covid was a huge boon to those investors. The ACA guaranteed their costs were covered. Now providers have been looted, leaving them without resources. Healthcare workers were again revalued, downward.

Now, in the best labor market in recent history, smart people are again leaving the healthcare industry. They just can make money elsewhere.

[Earth-shine]

7. Why does it always take a study to learn what we already know?

Well, for one, it helps to kick the can down the road.