Higher death rate in patients making emergency visits to private equity hospitals in US: Study

New Delhi, Sep 25 (PTI) A study that looked at death rates among patients in the emergency departments of US hospitals has found an increase of seven additional ones per 10,000 visits in facilities acquired by private equity firms.

Researchers from the Harvard Medical School and the universities of Pittsburgh and Chicago cite cuts in salary and staffing levels -- potentially impacting care for high-risk patients -- as a likely reason for the increase in death rates.

The findings, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, offer concrete evidence on the link between higher mortality in patients with a healthcare ownership model driven by a motive of making profit.

"Staffing cuts are one of the common strategies used to generate financial returns for the firm and its investors," senior author Zirui Song, associate professor of healthcare policy in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School, said.

"Among Medicare patients (US national health insurance), who are often older and more vulnerable, this study shows that those financial strategies may lead to potentially dangerous, even deadly consequences," Song said.

More than 10 lakh emergency department visits and 1.2 lakh intensive care hospitalisations across 49 private equity hospitals were compared with over 60 lakh emergency visits and 7.6 lakh ICU admissions across 293 hospitals not acquired by private equity (controls).

"Beneficiaries in (emergency departments) of private equity hospitals experienced seven additional deaths per 10,000 visits after acquisition relative to controls," the authors wrote.

They also found that transfers of patients to other hospitals increased and stays in intensive care units (ICUs) shortened after hospitals were acquired by private equity.

The analysis also revealed that following acquisition, the private equity hospitals reduced their expenditures on salaries in the emergency department by 18 per cent and in the ICU by 16 per cent, compared to hospitals not acquired by private equity firms.

One reason these cuts are concerning is that care delivered in emergency departments and ICUs remains mostly human, with face-to-face interactions at the patient's bedside, Song said.

"These are places where cutting staffing often means cutting the capacity to take care of people," Song said.

A 2024 review, led by researchers at the UK's University of Oxford and published in The Lancet Public Health journal, found that privatisation of healthcare "almost always corresponded with worse health outcomes".

Studies from high-income countries, including the US, Germany and South Korea, that looked at private healthcare providers and measured quality of care over a long-term were reviewed. PTI KRS SHS ARI