The surgical closures of hospitals are disproportionately hit by weak and socially susceptible communities

The new national study reveals that hospitals providing surgical care have closed at a much higher pace than new ones, with closures disproportionately concentrated in communities with a high level of poverty and social susceptibility. The study emphasizes the growing difference in access to surgical care.

The research will be presented at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) clinical congress in Chicago, October 4-7.

Scientists used the American Hospital Association data to track hospitals performing at least 100 operations per year in 2010 and 2020. Between hospital holes and closures they found a net decrease by 298 surgical hospitals across the country. Then the authors of the research used the social susceptibility indicator and prevention of diseases (SVI) to compare the socio -economic features of areas with hospital closures compared to those with stable or new hospitals.

We were surprised how large the number was. This is a very surprising vision of such a drastic drop without proper spare volume and concerns the patient’s access to care. ”

Jesse E. Passman, MD, MPH, MSHP, main author, a resident of general surgery at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Key arrangements

“One of the hidden things that get lost in the draw is patients’ records,” said senior author Heather Wachtel, MD, MTR, FACS, professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. “When the hospital closes, patients who have looked after may lose access to their healthcare documentation. Having this information is necessary for their ongoing healthcare.”

The reasons for the closure, although not studied, are probably economic, related to the challenges related to the maintenance of smaller hospitals and security institutions, which serve the high percentage of patients from government insurance, the authors notice.

Impact for patients and healthcare systems

The study emphasizes several key consequences of the hospital closures:

• Loss of medical history: Patients can permanently lose access to their medical records, leading to expensive and dangerous duplicative tests, restoring medical history and lack of key health information for new suppliers.

• Patients can abandon the following: Increased weight of travel and finding new suppliers can cause some patients to delay or completely avoid seeking the necessary medical or surgical care, enabling deterioration of conditions.

“For each of those patients who actually appear in our hospitals, I am sure that there are many patients who do not do it,” said Dr. Passman. “These conditions that could be served and potentially cured surgically are now oiled and become chronic problems.”

Co -authors are Jeffrey L. Roberson, MD, MBA; Sara P. Ginzberg, MD, MSHP; Jasmine Hwang, MD, MS; Gracia M. Vargas, MD; Rachel R. Kelz, MD, MSce, MBA, FACS; Giorgos C. Karakousis, MD, FACS; and Vicky W. there, he has.