ArticleThe European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care2023
The association between bed occupancy rates and hospital quality in the English National Health Service.
Article in The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
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- A Manifesto for Universal Healthcare: Reconstituting Primary Care Through Digital Innovation, Microbial Technologies and Empowered Citizenship.Microbial biotechnology · 2026Article
- Economic changes and public health resources associated with satisfaction toward the state health service system among older adults under the Universal Coverage Scheme across 77 provinces in Thailand, 2017-2024.International journal for equity in health · 2026Article
- Evaluating the impact of national hospital plan on healthcare service performance in Albania: evidence from the regional Memorial Hospital in Fier.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- The Impact of Hospital Bed Occupancy on Patient Flow and Emergency Department Access: A 25-Hospital Cohort Study.The Medical journal of Australia · 2026Article
- Determinants of Severe Financial Distress in U.S. Acute Care Hospitals: A National Longitudinal Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Healthcare professionals' perception of equipment and infrastructure as determinants of quality in anesthesia and intensive care units.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Crisis-time efficiency in Eastern Poland's regional hospitals (2015-2024): a data envelopment analysis.Frontiers in health services · 2026Article
- Key indicators contributing to prolonged emergency department stays in Saudi Arabia: a modified Delphi study.BMC emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Regional Inequities in the Distribution of the Nursing Workforce in Italy.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2025Article
- Implementing Telemedicine Intervention in Neonatal Intensive Care Units: Augmented Teleconsultation and Real-Time Monitoring Experience.Telemedicine reports · 2025Article
- A New Approach for Understanding International Hospital Bed Numbers and Application to Local Area Bed Demand and Capacity Planning.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Patient outcomes, efficiency, and adverse events for elective hip and knee replacement in private and NHS hospitals: a population-based cohort study in England.The Lancet regional health. Europe · 2024Article
- Hospital discharge processes: Insights from patients, caregivers, and staff in an Australian healthcare setting.PloS one · 2024Article
- Addressing the Knowledge Deficit in Hospital Bed Planning and Defining an Optimum Region for the Number of Different Types of Hospital Beds in an Effective Health Care System.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Review
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
We study whether hospitals that exhibit systematically higher bed occupancy rates are associated with lower quality in England over 2010/11-2017/18. We develop an economic conceptual framework to guide our empirical analysis and run regressions to inform possible policy interventions. First, we run a pooled OLS regression to test if high bed occupancy is associated with, and therefore acts as a signal of, lower quality, which could trigger additional regulation. Second, we test whether this association is explained by exogenous demand-supply factors such as potential demand, and unavoidable costs. Third, we include determinants of bed occupancy (beds, length of stay, and volume) that might be associated with quality directly, rather than indirectly through bed occupancy. Last, we use a within-between random-effects specification to decompose these associations into those due to variations in characteristics between hospitals and variations within hospitals. We find that bed occupancy rates are positively associated with overall and surgical mortality, negatively associated with patient-reported health gains, but not associated with other indicators. These results are robust to controlling for demand-supply shifters, beds, and volume. The associations reduce by 12%-25% after controlling for length of stay in most cases and are explained by variations in bed occupancy between hospitals.
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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.