The Relationship Between Patient Safety Outcomes and Hospital Characteristics

Abstract

To augment the discussion of the extent to which quality is universal, this study presents the results of an analysis of 13.5 million inpatient discharges from 1,640 general hospitals from 16 states. Factor analysis was performed on 588 general U.S. hospitals and 18 PSIs were reduced to seven factors. Hospital tiers were profiled utilizing demographic variables. Contrary to expectations the best quality hospitals tended to be smaller, non-teaching hospitals whereas larger, teaching hospitals tended to be poor quality performers. This analysis provided evidence patient safety quality rates may not be universal and organizational context may be an important influencing factor.