The deaths of the emergency department are aimed at the acquisition of investment capital: study

Diving brief:

• Patients may be more likely to die in hospital emergency services belonging to investment capital than According to a study published Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, non -private equity facilities, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
• Researchers found that investment in investment was associated with an increase of 13% of mortality on average among medical beneficiaries in emergency services. They allocated the increase to the staff cuts after purchasing of investment, which reduced the capacity of the facilities to take care of high-risk patients.
• “Staff discounts are one of the current strategies used to generate financial returns for the company and its investors,” said the main author Zirui Song, Associate Professor of Health Policy in the Blavatnik Institut de la Harvard Medical School. “Among the patients of Medicare, who are often older and more vulnerable, this study shows that these financial strategies can lead to potentially dangerous, even deadly consequences.”

Diving insight:

Research adds to the growing refrain calling for greater surveillance of investment capital in health care. The investor -based private property model has been used to buy hundreds of hospitals and nursing homes over the past decade, as well as thousands of medical practices, according to the study.

Investment capital companies generally buy hospitals in the hope of selling them in a few years for profit. This model has generated wealth for investors, but made a meticulous examination of academics, service providers and legislators.

Part of the concern lies in the allegations according to which the owners of infvestment reduce resources and degrade the quality of care.

This study is based on data from 49 capital investment hospitals and 293 non-private hospitals belonging to actions Between 2009 and 2019.

The researchers found that the salary expenses of the emergency services decreased by 18%, while wages were reduced by 16% in the USIs after the facilities were acquired by a investment capital company. Although the USI mortality has not changed, patients with the most sick intensive care were more likely to be transferred to other hospitals.

Endowment cuts may have reduced the capacity of installations to deal with high -risk patients, depending on the ratio.

“Our results support the concerns that personnel reductions can, on average, compromise the capacity of a hospital to provide care, rather than provide the same” more effectively “care,” wrote authors in the journal.

Other studies have also revealed a decrease in the quality of care after the acquisitions of investment capital. The previous research of SONG, for example, noted that the property of investment is associated with an increased incidence of avoidable undesirable events, including infections, which were also probably linked to the endowment cuts.

State and federal decision-makers have recently started to regulate the acquisitions of investment capital in health care, with the laws adopted by Massachusetts and Oregon, and Pennsylvania looking at a similar reform.