Kutney-Lee Ann, Melendez-Torres G J, McHugh Matthew D, Wall Barbra Mann
Ann Kutney-Lee, PhD, RN, is Assistant Professor of Nursing, School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. E-mail:
Health Care Manage Rev. 2014 Apr-Jun;39(2):134-44. doi: 10.1097/HMR.0b013e31828dc491.
Catholic hospitals play a critical role in the provision of health care in the United States; yet, empirical evidence of patient outcomes in these institutions is practically absent in the literature.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether patient perceptions of care are more favorable in Catholic hospitals as compared with non-Catholic hospitals in a national sample of hospitals.
This cross-sectional secondary analysis used linked data from the 2008 American Hospital Association Annual Survey, the 2008 Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, the 2008 Medicare Case Mix Index file, and the 2010 Religious Congregations and Membership Study. The study included over 3,400 hospitals nationwide, including 494 Catholic hospitals. Propensity score matching and ordinary least-squares regression models were used to examine the relationship between Catholic affiliation and various HCAHPS measures.
Our findings revealed that patients treated in Catholic hospitals appear to rate their hospital experience similar to patients treated in non-Catholic hospitals. Catholic hospitals maintain a very slight advantage above their non-Catholic peers on five HCAHPS measures related to nurse communication, receipt of discharge information, quietness of the room at night, overall rating, and recommendation of the hospital; yet, these differences were minimal.
If the survival of Catholic health care services is contingent upon how its provision of care is distinct, administrators of Catholic hospitals must show differences more clearly. Given the great importance of Catholic hospitals to the health of millions of patients in the United States, this study provides Catholic hospitals with a set of targeted areas on which to focus improvement efforts, especially in light of current pay-for-performance initiatives.
天主教医院在美国医疗保健服务中发挥着关键作用；然而，文献中几乎没有这些机构患者治疗结果的实证证据。
本研究的目的是在全国医院样本中，确定与非天主教医院相比，患者对天主教医院护理的看法是否更有利。
这项横断面二次分析使用了来自2008年美国医院协会年度调查、2008年医疗服务提供者和系统消费者评估（HCAHPS）调查、2008年医疗保险病例组合指数文件以及2010年宗教团体和成员研究的关联数据。该研究包括全国3400多家医院，其中494家为天主教医院。倾向得分匹配和普通最小二乘回归模型用于检验天主教附属关系与各种HCAHPS指标之间的关系。
我们的研究结果显示，在天主教医院接受治疗的患者对其医院体验的评分似乎与在非天主教医院接受治疗的患者相似。在与护士沟通、出院信息接收、夜间病房安静程度、总体评分以及医院推荐相关的五项HCAHPS指标上，天主教医院比非天主教同行略占优势；然而，这些差异微乎其微。
如果天主教医疗服务的生存取决于其护理服务的独特性，那么天主教医院的管理人员必须更清晰地展现出差异。鉴于天主教医院对美国数百万患者的健康至关重要，本研究为天主教医院提供了一系列有针对性的领域，以便集中改进工作，特别是考虑到当前的按绩效付费举措。
