Hospital type and patient outcomes: an empirical examination using AMI readmission and mortality records

This paper investigates whether there are differences in patient outcomes across different types of hospitals using patient-level data on readmission and mortality associated with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Hospitals are grouped according to their ownership type (private, public teaching, public non-teaching) and their location (metropolitan, country and remote country). Using data collected from 130 Victorian hospitals on 19,000 patients admitted to a hospital with their first AMI between January 2001 and December 2003, we consider how the likelihood of unplanned re-admission and mortality varies across hospital type. We find that there are significant differences across hospital types in the observed patient outcomes - private hospitals persistently outperform public hospitals.