Linked Life Data

18634671

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/18634671

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
Pt 1
pubmed:dateCreated
2008-7-18
pubmed:abstractText
The empirical association between high hospital procedure volume and lower mortality rates has led to recommendations for the regionalization of complex surgical procedures. While regionalization may improve outcomes, it also reduces market competition, which has been found to lower prices and improve health care quality. This study estimates the potential net benefits of regionalizing the Whipple surgery for pancreatic cancer patients. We confirm that increased hospital volume and surgeon volume are associated with lower inpatient mortality rates. We then predict the price and outcome consequences of concentrating Whipple surgery at hospitals that perform at least two, four, and six procedures respectively per year. Our consumer surplus calculations suggest that regionalization can increase consumer surplus, but potential price increases extract over half of the value of reduced deaths from regionalization. We reach three conclusions. First, regionalization can increase consumer surplus, but the benefits may be substantially less than implied by examining only the outcome side of the equation. Second, modest changes in outcomes due to regionalization may lead to decreases in consumer surplus. Third, before any regionalization policy is implemented, a deep and precise understanding of the nature of both outcome/volume and price/competition relationships is needed.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Jan
pubmed:issn
1744-134X
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Electronic
pubmed:volume
2
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
51-71
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2007
pubmed:articleTitle
Regionalization versus competition in complex cancer surgery.
pubmed:affiliation
Baker Institute, Rice University and Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77005, USA.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't