Why the study?
Does hospital cost of care correlate with quality of care, mortality, readmission rates, and downstream costs in Medicare patients with CHF or pneumonia?
Population
US hospitals discharging Medicare patients for congestive heart failure (CHF) or pneumonia in 2006
Comparison
Highest-cost quartile of hospital care vs Lowest-cost quartile of hospital care
Design
Cross-sectional
Follow-up
6 months
Authors
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Higher-cost hospitals linked to modestly better CHF outcomes; leaves open causal cost-quality relationships and optimal payment reforms.
Does hospital cost of care correlate with quality of care, mortality, readmission rates, and downstream costs in Medicare patients with CHF or pneumonia?
The association between hospital cost of care and quality or mortality is inconsistent across conditions, but low-cost hospitals consistently result in lower downstream 6-month inpatient costs without drastically increasing readmissions.
Lena M. Chen (2010) studied this question.
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