Managing care, incentives, and information: An exploratory look inside the 'black box' of hospital efficiency

Abstract

Objective. We sought to estimate the impact of individual dimensions of hospitals' managed care strategies on the cost per hospital discharge. Study Setting/Data Sources. Thirty-seven member hospitals of seven health systems in the Pacific, Rocky Mountain, and Southwest regions of the United States were studied. Study Design. Separate cross-sectional regression analyses of 21,135 inpatient discharges were performed in 1991 and 23,262 discharges in 1992. The multivariate model was estimated with hospital cost per discharge as the dependent variable. Model robustness was checked by comparing regression results at the individual discharge level with those at the level of the hospital/clinical c..