Hospital performance, the local economy, and the local workforce: findings from a US National Longitudinal Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Pay-for-performance is an increasingly popular approach to improving health care quality, and the US government will soon implement pay-for-performance in hospitals nationwide. Yet hospital capacity to perform (and improve performance) likely depends on local resources. In this study, we quantify the association between hospital performance and local economic and human resources, and describe possible implications of pay-for-performance for socioeconomic equity.

Methods and findings

We applied county-level measures of local economic and workforce resources to a national sample of US hospitals (n = 2,705), during the period 2004-2007. We analyzed performance for two common cardiac conditions (acute myocardial infarction [AMI] and heart failure [HF]), using process-

SUBMITTER: Blustein J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2893955 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature