A new study revealed the high death rates in the emergency departments in American hospitals acquired by private investment companies, compared to similar hospitals that have not been acquired, and this study is based on previous evidence to prove this link.
The study was conducted by researchers at the Harvard University Faculty of Medicine, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Chicago in the United States, and its results were published in the year of internal medicine on September 23, and it was written by Newsweek.
The researchers compared more than a million visits to the emergency department and 121 thousand cases of entry to the intensive care unit in 49 private investment hospitals between 2009 and 2019, with more than 6 million visits to the emergency department, and 760 thousand cases of entry to the intensive care unit in 293 reference hospitals. The data used included claims of traditional medical care program and cost reports.
The study found that private investment hospitals witnessed significant discounts in the number of employees and salaries, which may be among the common strategies to achieve financial returns for companies and investors according to the authors of the study.
Reducing salaries and increasing deaths
The study stated that after the acquisition of private investment companies on American hospitals, the death rate among the beneficiaries of the Medical Welfare Program (Medicir) in the emergency departments increased by 13% on average (7 additional deaths per 10 thousand visits to the emergency department, from a basic rate of 52 deaths per 10 thousand visits) compared to the hospitals of the control group not owned by the private sector.
“This happened after an increase in the number of patients with the emergency department transferred to other hospitals, whose health is usually worse,” said Dr. Zeroui Song, author of the study, professor of health care policies at Harvard University and a general internal doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“We also found a 18% decrease in the average expenses of the emergency department after the acquisition compared to the control group hospitals, which probably reduced the capacity and the scope of care, and may have interpreted the increase in deaths,” Song said.
Salaries in intensive care units were reduced by 16%. The death rate in these units has not changed, but the most sick care patients were transferred to other hospitals more while the remaining, healthier intensive care patients suffered from shorter residence periods.