Lower-cost hospital care is not always lower in quality
"Fortunately, there are interventions that show promise in decreasing hospital costs without harming quality. For example, decreasing length of stay for certain conditions can safely decrease costs. Indeed, Chen and colleagues found that lengths of stay were significantly longer at high-cost hospitals for both congestive heart failure and pneumonia."
"To increase progress on lowering hospital costs without harming quality, we need more comparative effectiveness studies—specifically, studies that show that two interventions of different costs are of equal value," Dr. Katz concludes. "This research is critical to increasing quality of care at the same time as we decrease cost, so that we can afford to expand health care coverage for the uninsured."
