Most Americans are born in hospitals. Hospitals also provide care during many other intimate and extraordinary circumstances in our lives – serious injuries, severe sickness and mental breakdown. Hospitals are also, by and large where we go to die.
As such, hospitals serve as a cornerstone of our communities and our very existence.
According to the American Hospital Association, there are 5,754 registered hospitals in the U.S. In 2011, almost 37 million people were admitted to a hospital in the U.S. – that’s more than 1:10 people.
Yet despite all this history, hospitals are in the midst of massive and disruptive change.
Even knowing this, SRxA’s Word on Health was shocked to read an article suggesting that by 2020 one in three hospitals will close or reorganize into an entirely different type of health care service provider.
Writing on KevinMD.com, a leading physician voice blog, authors David Houle and Jonathan Fleece suggest that that there are four significant forces and factors are driving this inevitable and historical shift.
First, America must bring down its crippling health care costs. The average American worker costs their employer $12,000 annually for health care benefits and this figure is increasing more than 10 percent every year. U.S. businesses cannot compete in a globally competitive market place at this level of spending. Federal and state budgets are getting crushed by the costs of health care entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid. Given this cost problem, hospitals are vulnerable as they are generally regarded as the most expensive part of the delivery system for health care in America.
Second, statistically speaking hospitals are just about the most dangerous places to be in the United States. Three times as many people die every year due to medical errors in hospitals as die on our highways — 100,000 deaths compared to 34,000.
The Journal of the American Medical Association reports that nearly 100,000 people die annually in hospitals from medical errors. Of this group, 80,000 die from hospital acquired infections, many of which can be prevented. Given the above number of admissions that means that 1 out of every 370 people admitted to a hospital dies due to medical errors.
In other words, hospitals are very dangerous places. It would take about 200 747 airplanes to crash annually to equal 100,000 preventable deaths. Imagine the American outcry if one 747 crashed every day for 200 consecutive days in the U.S. The airlines would stand before the nation and the world in disgrace.
Currently in our non-transparent health care delivery system, Americans have no way of knowing which hospitals are the most dangerous. We simply take uninformed chances with our lives at stake.
Third, hospital customer care is abysmal. Recent studies reveal that the average wait time in American hospital emergency rooms is approximately 4 hours. Name one other business where Americans would tolerate this low level of value and service.
Fourth, health care reform will make connectivity, electronic medical records, and transparency commonplace in health care. This means that in several years, and certainly before 2020, any American considering a hospital stay will simply go on-line to compare hospitals relative to infection rates, degrees of surgical success, and many other metrics. Isn’t this what we do in America, comparison shop? Our health is our greatest and most important asset. Would we not want to compare performance relative to any health and medical care the way we compare roofers or carpet installers? Inevitably when we are able to do this, hospitals will be driven by quality, service, and cost — all of which will be necessary to compete.
So hospitals are about to enter the open competitive marketplace. And as we know there will be winners and losers. According to Houle and Fleece a third of today’s hospitals will fall into the latter category.
Will your hospital be among them? Let us know what you think.
SRxA's Word on Health 