Hospital markets in the United States, 2007-2017.

BACKGROUND: U.S. hospital markets have undergone consolidation in recent decades with the growth of large "health systems," but little is known about the characteristics of systems, and whether certain geographic areas or service types (e.g. intensive care, obstetrics) have been differentially impacted by consolidation. METHODS: Using 2007-2017 American Hospital Association data, we characterized health systems and their growth, and determined how changes in hospital market structure have differentially affected specific service types and geographic areas. RESULTS: Despite a national trend of reduced hospital utilization, health systems grew larger during our study period. Hospital markets were already highly concentrated in 2007 and became even more concentrated between 2007 and 2017, across all service types that we measured. The least concentrated service was emergency department care, while intensive care and obstetrics were the most concentrated. As of 2017, 19.0% of markets - representing 11.2 million Americans - are served by only one hospital system. Concentrated markets are less populous, poorer areas and have lower physician supply than less concentrated markets. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital markets were highly concentrated in 2007 and have since become more concentrated in the subsequent decade. Hospital consolidation is a nationwide phenomenon, and is occurring across hospital service types. IMPLICATIONS: Antitrust alone may be insufficient to address high and increasing hospital market power. Decreasing barriers to entry may allow for more competition.

Assessing Trends in Hospital System Structures From 2008 to 2015.

BACKGROUND: The Affordable Care Act introduced a major systematic change aimed to promote coordination across the care continuum. Yet, it remains unknown the extent to which hospital system structures have changed following the Affordable Care Act. The structure of hospital systems has important implications for the cost, quality, and accessibility of health services. OBJECTIVES: To assess trends in the structures of hospital systems. RESEARCH DESIGN: We aggregated data from the American Hospital Association (AHA) Annual Survey to the system level. Using a panel of hospital systems from 2008 to 2015, we assessed trends in the number of hospital systems, their size, ownership characteristics, geospatial arrangements, and integration with outpatient services. RESULTS: In the period 2008-2015, there was an increasing percentage of hospitals that were system affiliated as well as growth in the number of hospital systems. A greater percentage of hospital systems that were organized as moderately centralized systems transitioned to centralized systems than to decentralized systems (19.8% vs. 4.7%; P<0.001). In terms of geospatial arrangement, a greater percentage of hub-and-spoke systems moved to a regional design than to national systems (20.0% vs. 8.2%; P<0.05). An increasing trend over time toward greater integration with outpatient services was found in a measure of total system level integration with outpatient services. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that hospital systems may be moving toward more regional designs. In addition, the trend of increasing integration offered across hospital systems overall, and as portion of total integration, suggests that systems may be increasing their services along the continuum of care.

The American Organization of Nurse Executives and American Hospital Association Initiatives Work to Combat Violence.

Violence affecting healthcare workers and healthcare organizations continues to be a serious safety issue. In this Leadership Perspectives column, Karen Wray, an American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) member who has experienced a mass causality incident 1st hand, outlines AONE's continuing work to promote safety and combat violence. She discusses recent work on violence issues by the American Hospital Association, AONE's parent organization.

Efficiency and hospital effectiveness in improving Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems ratings.

BACKGROUND: Efficiency has emerged as a central goal to the operations of health care organizations. There are two competing perspectives on the relationship between efficiency and organizational performance. Some argue that organizational slack is a waste and that efficiency contributes to organizational performance, whereas others maintain that slack acts as a buffer, allowing organizations to adapt to environmental demands and contributing to organizational performance. PURPOSES: As value-based purchasing becomes more prevalent, health care organizations are incented to become more efficient and, at the same time, improve their patients' experiences and outcomes. Unused slack resources might facilitate the timely implementation of these improvements. Building on previous research on organizational slack and inertia, we test whether efficiency and other organizational factors predict organizational effectiveness in improving Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) ratings. METHODOLOGY: We rely on data from the American Hospital Association and HCAHPS. We estimate hospital cost-efficiency by Stochastic Frontier Analysis and use regression analysis to determine whether efficiency, competition, hospital size, and other organizational factors are significant predictors of hospital effectiveness. FINDINGS: Our findings indicate that efficiency and hospital size have a significant negative association with organizational ability to improve HCAHPS ratings. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Although achieving organizational efficiency is necessary for health care organizations, given the changes that are currently occurring in the U.S. health care system, it is important for health care managers to maintain a certain level of slack to respond to environmental demands and have the resources needed to improve their performance.

Texas Nurse Staffing Trends Before and After Mandated Nurse Staffing Committees.

This article describes the evolution of mandated nurse staffing committees in Texas from 2002 to 2009 and presents a study that analyzed nurse staffing trends in Texas using a secondary analysis of hospital staffing data (N = 313 hospitals) from 2000 to 2012 obtained from the American Hospital Association Annual Survey. Nurse staffing patterns based on three staffing variables for registered nurses (RNs), licensed vocational nurses (LVNs), and total licensed nurses were identified: full-time equivalents per 1,000 adjusted patient days, productive hours per adjusted patient day, and RN skill mix. Similar to national trends between 2000 and 2012, most Texas hospitals experienced an increase in RN and total nurse staffing, decrease in LVN staffing, and an increase in RN skill mix. The magnitude of total nurse staffing changes in Texas (5% increase) was smaller than national trends (13.6% increase). Texas's small, rural, government hospitals and those with the highest preregulation staffing levels experienced the least change in staffing between 2000 and 2012: median change of 0 to .13 full-time equivalents per 1,000 adjusted patient days and median change in productive hours per patient day of 0 to .23. The varying effects of staffing committees in different organizational contexts should be considered in future staffing legislative proposals and other policy initiatives.