Hospitals that are purchased by private equity-backed companies are less safe for patients, a new study led by Harvard Medical School found.
On average, patients at private equity purchased facilities had 25.4% more hospital-acquired conditions, according to the study published Dec. 26 in JAMA.
To get their results, researchers examined data from 662,095 hospitalizations at 51 private equity-acquired hospitals compared with more than 4.1 million hospitalizations at 259 matched control hospitals. They found that despite typically having a lower-risk patient population of Medicare beneficiaries, private equity-purchased hospital patients were still more likely to encounter adverse events.
Specifically, there was a nearly 38% increase in patients with central line–associated bloodstream infections at private equity hospitals and a 27% increase in falls. Surgical site infections for patients at these facilities were doubled, according to researchers, which they wrote, overall means a "poorer quality of inpatient care."
"Such increases in hospital-acquired infections may result from decreased staffing, changes in operator technique, poorer clinician experience, increased patient illness, or other explanations," the study authors wrote.
While hospital-acquired infections are typically associated with longer hospital stays, researchers found that not to be the case for private equity-purchased facilities. Instead, there was actually a slight decrease in length of stay for patients there.