ArticleHealth affairs (Project Hope)2014
California emergency department closures are associated with increased inpatient mortality at nearby hospitals.
Article in Health affairs (Project Hope), 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Rural Hospital Closures and Mortality From Time-Sensitive Conditions in Texas.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Emergency Department Closures and Patient Outcomes: Scoping Review of Impacts on Care, Equity, and System Performance.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Left Without Being Seen: Nurse Work Environment and Timely Outcomes in New York and Illinois Emergency Departments.Journal of emergency nursing · 2024Article
- The trend of mortality rates following hospitals downgrading and closures due to outbreak of COVID-19 in Fars province: A comparative cohort study.Health science reports · 2024Article
- Structural Factors and Racial/Ethnic Inequities in Travel Times to Acute Care Hospitals in the Rural US South, 2007-2018.The Milbank quarterly · 2023Article
- Effect of an Emergency Department Closure on Homeless Patients and Adjacent Hospitals.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2022Article
- Effect of Designating Emergency Medical Centers for Critical Care on Emergency Medical Service Systems during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Retrospective Observational Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2022Article
- National trends in emergency department closures, mergers, and utilization, 2005-2015.PloS one · 2021Article
- Emergency Department Closures And Openings: Spillover Effects On Patient Outcomes In Bystander Hospitals.Health affairs (Project Hope) · 2019Article
- Closure simulation for reduction of emergency patient diversion: a discrete agent-based simulation approach to minimizing ambulance diversion.European journal of medical research · 2018Article
- Association Between Emergency Department Closure and Treatment, Access, and Health Outcomes Among Patients With Acute Myocardial Infarction.Circulation · 2016Article
- Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Between 1996 and 2009 the annual number of emergency department (ED) visits in the United States increased by 51 percent while the number of EDs nationwide decreased by 6 percent, which placed unprecedented strain on the nation's EDs. To investigate the effects of an ED's closing on surrounding communities, we identified all ED closures in California during the period 1999-2010 and examined their association with inpatient mortality rates at nearby hospitals. We found that one-quarter of hospital admissions in this period occurred near an ED closure and that these admissions had 5 percent higher odds of inpatient mortality than admissions not occurring near a closure. This association persisted whether we considered ED closures as affecting all future nearby admissions or only those occurring in the subsequent two years. These results suggest that ED closures have ripple effects on patient outcomes that should be considered when health systems and policy makers decide how to regulate ED closures.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.