Correlates of hospital quality: a preliminary study

Abstract

The research uses three indicators of quality suggested by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to examine factors leading to differentials in quality of hospital care. We find that hospital quality can be explained by the number of beds, the number of employees per bed, hospital financial performance, and whether the hospital is urban or rural. However, these variables are significant for only one measure of quality, procedures implemented in case of heart attack.