Poor, Minorities Served by Worst Hospitals: Study

A disproportionate number of poor and elderly black and Hispanic patients are served by the nation’s worst hospitals in terms of care and cost, according to the findings of a new study. 

Researchers from Harvard looked at data from hospitals throughout the United States and found that more than double the proportion of poor and minority patients had to seek treatment at the worst hospitals in the country, facing an increased risk of death from treatment in those facilities.

The study was published this month by the medical journal Health Affairs, reviewing data on hospital costs and treatment quality from Medicare databases. However, the researchers were required not to publish the names of the worst hospitals on the list in return for access to the data.

Researchers found that the 178 worst hospitals were dominated by small public or for-profit health care facilities in the South, and the best hospitals tended to be non-profit facilities in the Northeast.

The worst hospitals treated 15% of elderly black patients, compared to 7% in the best hospitals, and provided care to 4% percent of elderly Hispanic patients, while the best hospitals only cared for 1%. Medicaid patients accounted for 15% of patients at the best hospitals, and 23% at the worst.

Researchers used the risk of surviving severe heart attacks as a measure of the hospitals’ treatment effectiveness, finding that patients being treated at the worst hospitals had up to a 10% higher chance of death.

In one year, a part of the Affordable Care Act will go into play that will punish poor performing hospitals with a 1% reduction in Medicare payments. Some experts say the reduction will put many of the poorer performing hospitals on the verge of collapse, but proponents of the act say that monetary incentives are built into the act that will award hospitals for even attempting to improve conditions.

The South, which hosts many of the worst hospitals, is a nexus for resistance to the health care act, while it gets some of its strongest support from the Northeast, where many of the best hospitals can be found.