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Tag: private equity

Published on Leave a comment on Study Finds That Patient Care Suffers When Private Equity Takes Over A Hospital

It's what many suspected. Once private equity firms take over a hospital, patient care suffers.

A recent study found that in hospitals acquired by private equity firms, the patient death rate in emergency departments increases, and there is an increase in patient transfers to other hospitals.

It is thought that this is due to cuts in staffing and salary cuts. Other cuts (equipment? supplies?) may also be occurring.

It appears that rather than patient care, profits are #1 to private equity firms.

After hospitals were acquired by private equity firms, patient death rates in the emergency departments rose by 13% compared with similar hospitals, according to research published this week in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The research, which compared outcomes at hospitals over a 10-year period, adds fresh evidence to previous studies showing harmful patient outcomes and higher costs among health care entities owned by profit-oriented financiers.

...continue reading "Study Finds That Patient Care Suffers When Private Equity Takes Over A Hospital"

Published on Leave a comment on Patient Experiences Worsen In Hospitals Acquired By Private Equity

Everyone reading this will say: Ah ha...of course. When profits come first, then patient care suffers. A recent study looked at 73 private-equity acquired hospitals compared to 293 hospitals that weren't, and found that the patient care experience and patient-staff responsiveness worsened in hospitals taken over and managed by private equity.

And with each additional year of private equity ownership, these measures further worsened. As the study authors noted: this is due to profit-driven changes made by private equity. One of the researchers noted: "The evidence to date suggests that when private equity takes over a hospital, things generally get worse for patients."

From Medical Xpress: Patient care declines after private equity buys hospitals, study finds

In a paper published in JAMA, health policy experts at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) report that patient care experience worsened after private equity (PE) acquisition of US hospitals, as did patient-reported staff responsiveness.

Rishi Wadhera, MD, MPP, Anjali Bhatla, MD, and colleagues demonstrated that patient care continued to worsen at PE-acquired hospitals with each additional year following acquisition relative to non-acquired hospitals, suggesting that profit-driven changes made by PE may have downstream effects that accumulate over time. ...continue reading "Patient Experiences Worsen In Hospitals Acquired By Private Equity"