Choice of hospital : which type of quality matters?

Abstract

The implications of hospital quality competition depend on what type of quality affects choice of hospital. Previous studies of quality and choice of hospitals have used crude measures of quality such as mortality and readmission rates rather than measures of the health gain from specific treatments. We estimate multinomial logit models of hospital choice by patients undergoing hip replacement surgery in the English NHS to test whether hospital demand responds to quality as measured by detailed patient reports of health before and after hip replacement. We find that a one standard deviation increase in average health gain increases demand by up to 10%. The more traditional measures of hospital quality are less important in determining hospital choice.

Metadata

Authors/Creators:

Gutacker, Nils https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2833-0621
Siciliani, Luigi https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1739-7289
Moscelli, Giuseppe (gm752@york.ac.uk)
Gravelle, Hugh Stanley Emrys https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7753-4233

© 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details. Embargo period : 18 months

Keywords:

quality, demand, healthcare, hospitals, competition, patient reported outcomes, Competition, Demand, Hospitals, Patient reported outcomes, Quality, Healthcare, Hospitals/standards, State Medicine, Choice Behavior, Hospital Mortality, Humans, Arthroplasty, Replacement, Hip, Logistic Models, Quality of Health Care

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