I have written in the past about the recent popularity of single specialty hospitals (see “Focused Factories” and “…Specialty Hospitals” posts). A paper by Kathleen Carey investigates whether or not single specialty hospitals are more efficient than traditional mutli-specialty hospitals. The study finds the following:
- Overall, single speciality hospitals (SSH) are not more cost efficient than competing, full-service, acute care hospitals.
- There was not a significant difference between cardiac SSH and full-service hospital cost inefficiency.
- There was a significant difference between orthopedic/surgical SSH and ful-service hospital cost inefficiency.