Hospital-acquired adverse events or conditions including falls and infections increased by approximately 25% after hospitals' acquisition by private equity compared with control hospitals, on the basis of a study of Medicare claims for more than 4,500,000 hospitalizations.
"Prior research on private equity in healthcare showed that acquisition is associated with higher charges, prices, and spending; however, the implications for quality of care and patient outcomes remained less understood," said corresponding author Zirui Song, MD, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, in an interview. "This was particularly true for measures of clinical quality that were less susceptible to changes in patient mix or coding behavior, such as hospital-acquired adverse events.", the researchers compared data from 100% Medicare Part A claims for 662,095 hospitalizations at 51 hospitals acquired by private equities and 4,160,720 hospitalizations at 259 control hospitals. The hospitalizations occurred between 2009 and 201