Knox Kris Joseph, Blankmeyer Eric C, Stutzman J R
Department of Maritime Administration, Texas A&M University at Galveston, Galveston, TX 77552, USA.
Health Care Manag Sci. 2003 Aug;6(3):175-88. doi: 10.1023/a:1024440123881.
Profit-seeking nursing facilities have been found to be overwhelmingly more cost efficient than nonprofit facilities. However, the question remains as to whether these organizational-efficiency differences are the result of operating structural differences (i.e., agency relationship costs) or differences in the quality of care rendered. Using traditional cost- and profit-function regression analyses which include a new index measure for quality, we conclude that quality influences costs and profits marginally, efficiency differences reflect agency costs and differences in organizational goals, and the belief that increases in quality require increases in cost does not hold when facility capacity is significantly underutilized.
研究发现，营利性护理机构在成本效益方面比非营利性机构要高得多。然而，这些组织效率差异是运营结构差异（即代理关系成本）的结果，还是所提供护理质量差异的结果，这一问题仍然存在。通过使用传统的成本和利润函数回归分析（其中包括一种新的质量指标衡量方法），我们得出结论：质量对成本和利润率的影响微乎其微，效率差异反映了代理成本和组织目标的差异，并且当设施容量未得到充分利用时，认为提高质量需要增加成本的观点并不成立。
