The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Monday, October 25, 2021
Dear John,
A paper in the October issue focuses on access to inpatient services after hospital mergers in rural areas.
Impacts Of Hospital Mergers In Rural Areas
In the most recent issue of Health Affairs, Rachel Mosher Henke and coauthors examine the influence of rural hospital mergers on services offered and inpatient use.
From the pre period to one year postmerger, the percentage of hospitals providing maternal/neonatal services and surgical services decreased by 6.7 percentage points moreand 5.0 percentage points more, respectively, for merged hospitals than for comparison hospitals.
Merged hospitals in rural areas also showed reductions in the volume of mental/substance use disorder stays, whereas hospitals that remained unaffiliated showed increased volumes.
“Although mergers might salvage hospitals’ sustainability, they do not
necessarily mean that all service lines are retained,” the authors conclude.
Today on Health Affairs Blog, Julia Raifman and coauthors report that in Census
Household Pulse Survey data,individuals without paid sick leave were disproportionately low income and more likely to report food insufficiency.
Priyanka Desai and coauthors discuss how the Maryland Statewide Prevention and Reduction Collaborative for COVID-19 created a virtual forum for staff at acute care hospitals.
Sara Rosenbaum and Morgan Handley consider using the Texas uncompensated care pool demo as an example and offer
a reform agenda to make sure that Section 1115 demos further Medicaid’s purposes, not undermine them.
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Our October 2021 Lunch and Learn session will feature Health Affairs Director of Health Equity, Vabren Watts, PhD, who will give an update on the journal’s initiative to advance racial equity in scholarly publishing of health services research. He will discuss Health Affairs’ strategy and programming aimed at increasing the quality and quantity of health equity content in all aspects of the journal, and the number of contributors from racially diverse backgrounds.
Date: Tuesday, October 26, 2021 Time: 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. EDT Place: Online details to be shared upon registration
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat
the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
