| ...when it comes to quality care on a large scale. Some high profile stories from last week surprised us as we learned:
> 1) hospital mergers negatively affect quality of care, and > > 2) hospitals where physicians are employed perform no better on many > quality measures than hospitals where physicians are contracted.
These stories—and another we've connected from last October about hospital accreditation—poke holes in what health care organizations often point to as signals of their commitment to quality.
There are crucial takeaways for organizations that care about quality.
Merging organizations often cite the potential to leverage economies of scale and employed physicians to lower costs and improve care coordination and quality, but patient outcomes seem to suffer regardless when there’s less competition in the health care marketplace.
And while large health care organizations favor Joint Commission accreditation to signal their commitment to quality, hospital accreditation doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on patient outcomes. |
