The Rheumatologist
COVID-19 NewsACR Convergence
  • Connect with us:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Feed
  • Home
  • Conditions
    • Rheumatoid Arthritis
    • SLE (Lupus)
    • Crystal Arthritis
      • Gout Resource Center
    • Spondyloarthritis
    • Osteoarthritis
    • Soft Tissue Pain
    • Scleroderma
    • Vasculitis
    • Systemic Inflammatory Syndromes
    • Guidelines
  • Resource Centers
    • Axial Spondyloarthritis Resource Center
    • Gout Resource Center
    • Psoriatic Arthritis Resource Center
    • Rheumatoid Arthritis Resource Center
    • Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Resource Center
  • Drug Updates
    • Biologics & Biosimilars
    • DMARDs & Immunosuppressives
    • Topical Drugs
    • Analgesics
    • Safety
    • Pharma Co. News
  • Professional Topics
    • Ethics
    • Legal
    • Legislation & Advocacy
    • Career Development
      • Certification
      • Education & Training
    • Awards
    • Profiles
    • President’s Perspective
    • Rheuminations
    • Interprofessional Perspective
  • Practice Management
    • Billing/Coding
    • Quality Assurance/Improvement
    • Workforce
    • Facility
    • Patient Perspective
    • Electronic Health Records
    • Apps
    • Information Technology
    • From the College
    • Multimedia
      • Audio
      • Video
  • Resources
    • Issue Archives
    • ACR Convergence
      • Gout Resource Center
      • Axial Spondyloarthritis Resource Center
      • Psoriatic Arthritis
      • Abstracts
      • Meeting Reports
      • ACR Convergence Home
    • American College of Rheumatology
    • ACR ExamRheum
    • Research Reviews
    • ACR Journals
      • Arthritis & Rheumatology
      • Arthritis Care & Research
      • ACR Open Rheumatology
    • Rheumatology Image Library
    • Treatment Guidelines
    • Rheumatology Research Foundation
    • Events
  • About Us
    • Mission/Vision
    • Meet the Authors
    • Meet the Editors
    • Contribute to The Rheumatologist
    • Subscription
    • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Search
You are here: Home / Articles / U.S. Teaching Hospitals Are Expensive, But Have Lower Death Rates

U.S. Teaching Hospitals Are Expensive, But Have Lower Death Rates

May 23, 2017 • By Lisa Rapaport

  • Tweet
  • Email
Print-Friendly Version / Save PDF

(Reuters Health)—Academic medical centers, increasingly spurned by insurers for being more expensive than community hospitals, appear to have lower death rates for older adults than other facilities, a U.S. study suggests.

You Might Also Like
  • Hospitals Have Lower Death Rates During Surprise Inspections
  • Hospitals May Face Bigger Penalties for Readmissions Than Deaths
  • Bigger May Not Be Better for China’s ‘Super Hospitals’

Researchers reviewed millions of records for patients aged 65 and older and insured by Medicare, the U.S. health program for the elderly. They found 8.3% of patients died within 30 days of admission at major teaching hospitals, compared with 9.2% at minor teaching hospitals and 9.5% at community hospitals.

ad goes here:advert-1
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

“We found, to our surprise, that across a wide range of medical and surgical conditions, patients at teaching hospitals did better—they were less likely to die,” says senior study author Dr. Ashish Jha of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.

“While mortality may not be the only indicator that matters, it certainly is the most important one,” Jha says by email. “We know that short term mortality is driven largely by how well the hospital does in taking care of patients.”

ad goes here:advert-2
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

Academic medical centers are often considered more expensive than community hospitals and some insurers have excluded teaching hospitals from their networks in an attempt to control costs, assuming that quality is comparable, Jha and colleagues note online May 23 in JAMA.1

For the study, researchers reviewed records from 21.4 million hospitalizations at 4,483 hospitals nationwide. This study included 250 facilities designated as major teaching hospitals with membership in the Council of Teaching Hospitals, 894 hospitals with medical school affiliations designated as minor teaching hospitals, and 3,339 community hospitals.

When researchers looked at hospitals by size, they found teaching hospitals had lower death rates than non-teaching hospitals when the facilities were large, with at least 400 beds, and medium-sized, with 100 to 399 beds.

ad goes here:advert-3
ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL TO CONTINUE

Among small hospitals with 99 or fewer beds, minor teaching hospitals had lower death rates than community hospitals, the study also found.

Teaching hospitals still had lower death rates after researchers accounted for differences in patients’ characteristics at the various hospital types, and for other characteristics of the hospitals themselves.

One limitation of the study is that it only included certain Medicare patients, and the results might not be representative of what death rates would look like for people at other ages or with other types of insurance, the authors note.

The lower death rates for teaching hospitals are surprising for two reasons, says Dr. Vineet Arora of the University of Chicago: they have more trainees who might make more mistakes than seasoned physicians and they often treat patients too sick or badly injured to get care at community hospitals who are more likely to die.

Pages: 1 2 | Single Page

Filed Under: Facility, Practice Management Tagged With: death, hospital, hospitalized, Medicare

You Might Also Like:
  • Hospitals Have Lower Death Rates During Surprise Inspections
  • Hospitals May Face Bigger Penalties for Readmissions Than Deaths
  • Bigger May Not Be Better for China’s ‘Super Hospitals’
  • U.S. Appeals Court: Hospitals Can Be ‘Urban’ & ‘Rural’ at Same Time

Meeting Abstracts

Browse and search abstracts from the ACR Convergence and ACR/ARP Annual Meetings going back to 2012.

Visit the Abstracts site »

ACR Convergence

Don’t miss rheumatology’s premier scientific meeting for anyone involved in research or the delivery of rheumatologic care or services.

Visit the ACR Convergence site »

American College of Rheumatology

Visit the official website for the American College of Rheumatology.

Visit the ACR »

The Rheumatologist newsmagazine reports on issues and trends in the management and treatment of rheumatic diseases. The Rheumatologist reaches 11,500 rheumatologists, internists, orthopedic surgeons, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and other healthcare professionals who practice, research, or teach in the field of rheumatology.

About Us / Contact Us / Advertise / Privacy Policy / Terms of Use / Cookie Preferences

  • Connect with us:
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
  • Feed

Copyright © 2006–2023 American College of Rheumatology. All rights reserved.

ISSN 1931-3268 (print)
ISSN 1931-3209 (online)