Rural Surgery and Status of the Rural Workplace: Hospital Survival and Economics.

Nearly 60 million people live in a rural area across the United States. Since 2005, 162 rural hospitals have closed, and the rate of rural hospital closures seems to be accelerating. Major drivers of rural hospital closures are poor financial health, aging facilities, and low occupancy rates. Rural hospitals are particularly vulnerable to policy and market changes, and even small changes can have a disproportionate effect on rural hospital financial viability. Surgery can be safely performed in rural hospitals; however, hospital closures may be putting the rural population at increased risk of morbidity and mortality from surgical disease.

Surgical, Economic, and Psychological Impacts of SARS-COV-2 on a Kansas Community Hospital System.

The chief of surgery of a 264-bed acute care facility and clinic system in Topeka, KS, USA, gives a chronology that illustrates the rapid and profound clinical, economic, and emotional impact of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak on his hospital and community. In his view, the pandemic has laid bare the weaknesses of several factors basic to the modern US health care system and the resulting economic crisis: just-in-time supply chain technology; foreign sourcing of masks, gowns, and critical equipment, all at critical shortages during the crisis; rural hospital closings; lack of excess capacity through maximization of utilization for efficiency; and an overreliance on high revenue elective procedures and tests. His team was tested by an emergency operation for bowel obstruction that put all the isolation protocols into action. Despite their readiness and the success of the operation and the potential for telemedicine as an alternative to in-person evaluations and outpatient visits, the forced cancellation of all elective operations have led to the loss of revenue for both hospital system and providers, furlough and termination of workers, and financial hardship and uncertainty.

Bundled Payment Reform and Dialysis Facility Closures in ESKD.

BACKGROUND: In 2011, inclusion of injectable medications into an expanded ESKD payment bundle prompted concerns that dialysis facilities facing higher costs might close, disrupting care delivery and access to care. Whether this policy change influenced dialysis facility closures is unknown. METHODS: To examine whether facility closures increased after 2011 and whether factors influencing closures changed, we analyzed US Renal Data System registry data to identify all patients receiving in-center hemodialysis from 2006 through 2015 and to track dialysis facility closures. We used interrupted time series logistic regression models and estimated marginal effects to examine immediate and longer-term changes in the likelihood of being affected by facility closures following payment reform. We also examined whether associations between selected predictors of closures indicating populations at "high risk" of closure (patient characteristics, facility characteristics, and geography-related characteristics) and closures changed after payment reform. RESULTS: Dialysis facility closures were uncommon over the study period. In adjusted models, the relative odds of experiencing a closure declined by 37% (odds ratio [OR], 0.63; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 0.59 to 0.67) immediately after payment reform and declined by an additional 6% (OR, 0.94; 95% CI, 0.91 to 0.97) annually thereafter, corresponding to a 0.3% lower absolute probability of closure in 2015 in association with payment reform. Patients who were black and who dialyzed at small, hospital-based facilities experienced slight increases in closures following payment reform, whereas Hispanic and Medicare/Medicaid dual-eligible patients experienced slight decreases in closures. CONCLUSIONS: Expansion of the ESKD payment bundle was not associated with increased closure of dialysis facilities, although the likelihood of closures changed slightly for some higher-risk populations.

An analysis of media reporting on the closure of freestanding midwifery units in England.

PROBLEM: Despite clinical guidelines and policy promoting choice of place of birth, 14 Freestanding Midwifery Units were closed between 2008 and 2015, closures reported in the media as justified by low use and financial constraints. BACKGROUND: The Birthplace in England Programme found that freestanding midwifery units provided the most cost-effective birthplace for women at low risk of complications. Women planning birth in a freestanding unit were less likely to experience interventions and serious morbidity than those planning obstetric unit birth, with no difference in outcomes for babies. METHODS: This paper uses an interpretative technique developed for policy analysis to explore the representation of these closures in 191 news articles, to explore the public climate in which they occurred. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION: The articles focussed on underuse by women and financial constraints on services. Despite the inclusion of service user voices, the power of framing was held by service managers and commissioners. The analysis exposed how neoliberalist and austerity policies have privileged representation of individual consumer choice and market-driven provision as drivers of changes in health services. This normative framing presents the reasons given for closure as hard to refute and cultural norms persist that birth is safest in an obstetric setting, despite evidence to the contrary. CONCLUSION: The rise of neoliberalism and austerity in contemporary Britain has influenced the reform of maternity services, in particular the closure of midwifery units. Justifications given for closure silence other narratives, predominantly from service users, that attempt to present women's choice in terms of rights and a social model of care.

Understanding The Relationship Between Medicaid Expansions And Hospital Closures.

Decisions by states about whether to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have implications for hospitals' financial health. We hypothesized that Medicaid expansion of eligibility for childless adults prevents hospital closures because increased Medicaid coverage for previously uninsured people reduces uncompensated care expenditures and strengthens hospitals' financial position. We tested this hypothesis using data for the period 2008-16 on hospital closures and financial performance. We found that the ACA's Medicaid expansion was associated with improved hospital financial performance and substantially lower likelihoods of closure, especially in rural markets and counties with large numbers of uninsured adults before Medicaid expansion. Future congressional efforts to reform Medicaid policy should consider the strong relationship between Medicaid coverage levels and the financial viability of hospitals. Our results imply that reverting to pre-ACA eligibility levels would lead to particularly large increases in rural hospital closures. Such closures could lead to reduced access to care and a loss of highly skilled jobs, which could have detrimental impacts on local economies.

Association Between Hospital Financial Distress and Immediate Breast Reconstruction Surgery After Mastectomy Among Women With Ductal Carcinoma In Situ.

Importance: Hospital financial distress (HFD) is a state in which a hospital is at risk of closure because of its financial condition. Hospital financial distress may reduce the services a hospital can offer, particularly unprofitable ones. Few studies have assessed the association of HFD with quality of care. Objective: To examine the association between HFD and receipt of immediate breast reconstruction surgery after mastectomy among women diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). Design, Setting, and Participants: This retrospective cohort study assessed data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample of 5760 women older than 18 years (mean [SD] age: 57.5 [13.2]) with DCIS who underwent mastectomy in 2008-2012 at hospitals categorized by financial distress. Women treated at 1156 hospitals located in 538 different counties across Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming were included. Of these, 2385 women (41.4%) underwent immediate breast reconstruction surgery. Women with invasive cancer were excluded. The database included unique hospital identification variables, and participants were identified using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes. Data were analyzed from January 1, 2012, to February 28, 2014. Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome was the adjusted association between HFD and receipt of immediate breast reconstruction surgery after mastectomy. Results: In this analysis of database information, 2385 of 5760 women (41.4%) received immediate breast reconstruction surgery. Of these, 693 (36.7%) were treated at a hospital under high HFD and received immediate breast reconstruction surgery compared with 863 (44.0%) treated at a hospital under low HFD (P < .001). Reconstruction surgery was associated with younger age, white race, private insurance, treatment at a teaching and cancer hospital, private hospital ownership, and the percentage of individuals in the county with insurance. After adjustment, women treated at hospitals under high HFD (OR, 0.79; 95% CI, 0.62-0.99) and medium HFD (OR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.61-0.94) were significantly less likely to receive reconstruction than women treated at hospitals with low to no HFD. Conclusions and Relevance: The financial strength of the hospital where a patient receives treatment is associated with receipt of immediate breast reconstruction surgery. In addition to focusing on patient-related factors, efforts to improve quality should also focus on hospital-related factors.

Tracking rural hospital closures.

(1) Over 50 percent of primary care health professional shortage areas (HPSAs) were in rural areas in November 2016, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration. (2) Rural areas face a higher uninsured rate than metropolitan areas. (3) Rural hospitals tend to have low patient volume, a high portion of patients on Medicare and Medicaid, and a high number of uninsured patients.

Burden, duration and costs of hospital bed closures due to acute gastroenteritis in England per winter, 2010/11-2015/16.

BACKGROUND: Bed closures due to acute gastroenteritis put hospitals under pressure each winter. In England, the National Health Service (NHS) has monitored the winter situation for all acute trusts since 2010/11. AIM: To estimate the burden, duration and costs of hospital bed closures due to acute gastroenteritis in winter. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of routinely collected time-series data of bed closures due to diarrhoea and vomiting was conducted for the winters 2010/11 to 2015/16. Two key issues were addressed by imputing non-randomly missing values at provider level, and filtering observations to a range of dates recorded in all six winters. The lowest and highest values imputed were taken to represent the best- and worst-case scenarios. Bed-days were costed using NHS reference costs, and potential staff absence costs were based on previous studies. FINDINGS: In the best-to-worst case, a median of 88,000-113,000 beds were closed due to gastroenteritis each winter. Of these, 19.6-20.4% were unoccupied. On average, 80% of providers were affected, and had closed beds for a median of 15-21 days each winter. Hospital costs of closed beds were £5.7-£7.5 million, which increased to £6.9-£10.0 million when including staff absence costs due to illness. CONCLUSIONS: The median number of hospital beds closed due to acute gastroenteritis per winter was equivalent to all general and acute hospital beds in England being unavailable for a median of 0.88-1.12 days. Costs for hospitals are high but vary with closures each winter.

Predicting Financial Distress and Closure in Rural Hospitals.

PURPOSE: Annual rates of rural hospital closure have been increasing since 2010, and hospitals that close have poor financial performance relative to those that remain open. This study develops and validates a latent index of financial distress to forecast the probability of financial distress and closure within 2 years for rural hospitals. METHODS: Hospital and community characteristics are used to predict the risk of financial distress 2 years in the future. Financial and community data were drawn for 2,466 rural hospitals from 2000 through 2013. We tested and validated a model predicting a latent index of financial distress (FDI), measured by unprofitability, equity decline, insolvency, and closure. Using the predicted FDI score, hospitals are assigned to high, medium-high, medium-low, and low risk of financial distress for use by practitioners. FINDINGS: The FDI forecasts 8.01% of rural hospitals to be at high risk of financial distress in 2015, 16.3% as mid-high, 46.8% as mid-low, and 28.9% as low risk. The rate of closure for hospitals in the high-risk category is 4 times the rate in the mid-high category and 28 times that in the mid-low category. The ability of the FDI to discriminate hospitals experiencing financial distress is supported by a c-statistic of .74 in a validation sample. CONCLUSION: This methodology offers improved specificity and predictive power relative to existing measures of financial distress applied to rural hospitals. This risk assessment tool may inform programs at the federal, state, and local levels that provide funding or support to rural hospitals.

Care homes may close due to cost of national living wage.

In April this year, a compulsory national living wage (NLW) for people over the age of 25 was introduced across the UK. The NLW increases minimum hourly pay from £6.70 to £7.20, a figure that is due to rise to £9 by 2020.

Hospital closures and the current healthcare climate: the future of rural hospitals in the USA.

Hospital closures occur from time to time. These closures affect not only the patients that depend on the hospitals but also the economy in many rural areas. Many factors come into play when a hospital decides to shut off services. Although influencing reasons may vary, hospital closures are likely to be caused by financial shortfalls. In the USA recently, several rural hospitals have closed and many are on the verge of closing. The recent changes in the healthcare industry due to the new reforms are believed to have impacted certain small community and rural hospitals by putting them at risk of closure. In this article, we will discuss some of the highlights of the healthcare reforms and the events that followed, to relate how they may have affected the hospitals. We will also discuss what the future of these hospitals may look like and the necessary steps that the hospitals need to adopt to sustain themselves.

Cost-effectiveness of Ward Closure to Control Outbreaks of Norovirus Infection in United Kingdom National Health Service Hospitals.

BACKGROUND: Norovirus is the most common cause of outbreaks of acute gastroenteritis in National Health Service hospitals in the United Kingdom. Wards (units) are often closed to new admissions to stop the spread of the virus, but there is limited evidence describing the cost-effectiveness of ward closure. METHODS: An economic analysis based on the results from a large, prospective, active-surveillance study of gastroenteritis outbreaks in hospitals and from an epidemic simulation study compared alternative ward closure options evaluated at different time points since first infection, assuming different efficacies of ward closure. RESULTS: A total of 232 gastroenteritis outbreaks occurring in 14 hospitals over a 1-year period were analyzed. The risk of a new outbreak in a hospital is significantly associated with the number of admission, general medical, and long-stay wards that are concurrently affected but is less affected by the level of community transmission. Ward closure leads to higher costs but reduces the number of new outbreaks by 6%-56% and the number of clinical cases by 1%-55%, depending on the efficacy of the intervention. The incremental cost per outbreak averted varies from £10 000 ($14 000) to £306 000 ($428 000), and the cost per case averted varies from £500 ($700) to £61 000 ($85 000). The cost-effectiveness of ward closure decreases as the efficacy of the intervention increases, and the cost-effectiveness increases with the timing of the intervention. The efficacy of ward closure is critical from a cost-effectiveness perspective. CONCLUSIONS: Ward closure may be cost-effective, particularly if targeted to high-throughput units.