Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33221070›Full record

ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2020

Do small hospitals have lower quality? Evidence from the English NHS.

James Gaughan, Luigi Siciliani, Hugh Gravelle, Giuseppe Moscelli

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

4 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

James GaughanCentre for Health Economics, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK.
Luigi SicilianiDepartment of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK. Electronic address: luigi.siciliani@york.ac.uk.
Hugh GravelleCentre for Health Economics, University of York, York, YO10 5DD, UK.
Giuseppe MoscelliDepartment of Economics, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

We investigate the extent to which small hospitals are associated with lower quality. We first take a patient perspective, and test if, controlling for casemix, patients admitted to small hospitals receive lower quality than those admitted to larger hospitals. We then investigate if differences in quality between large and small hospitals can be explained by hospital characteristics such as hospital type and staffing. We use a range of quality measures including hospital mortality rates (overall and for specific conditions), hospital acquired infection rates, waiting times for emergency patients, and patient perceptions of the care they receive. We find that small hospitals, with fewer than 400 beds, are generally not associated with lower quality before or after controlling for hospital characteristics. The only exception is heart attack mortality, which is generally higher in small hospitals.

Indexed as

HospitalsState MedicineEmergenciesHospitalizationHospital MortalityHumansEnglandNational health serviceQualitySmall hospitals

Identifiers

PMID33221070
PMCPMC7768184

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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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.