Quality of care and patient outcomes in critical access rural hospitals.

ABSTRACT:

Context

Critical access hospitals (CAHs) play a crucial role in the US rural safety net. Current policy efforts have focused primarily on helping these small, isolated hospitals remain financially viable to ensure access for individuals living in rural areas in the United States; however, little is known about the quality of care they provide or the outcomes their patients achieve.

Objectives

To examine the quality of care and patient outcomes at CAHs and to understand why patterns of care might differ for CAHs vs non-CAHs.

Design, setting, and patients

A retrospective analysis in 4738 US hospitals of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) (10,703 for CAHs vs 469,695 for non-CAHs), congestive heart failure (CHF) (52,927 for CAHs

SUBMITTER: Joynt KE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3337777 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature