Identifying the Surgical Profiles of U.S. Acute Care Hospitals: A Latent Class Analysis

Abstract

Surgical services are key strategic and operational activities that have important implications for a hospital’s performance. Little is known, however, about whether and how the types of surgical services offered by hospitals vary at an organizational level. The purpose of this study was to identify different surgical profiles based on the type and volume of surgical services provided by hospitals. The study was an observational pooled, cross-sectional study. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify different surgical profiles. Bivariate analyses were used to assess whether there were differences between the surgical profiles with respect to hospital and community characteristics. Our analysis revealed six surgical profiles among U.S hospitals: Specialist hospitals; No Focus hospitals; Cardiovascular Focus hospitals; Low Surgical Volume hospitals; High Surgical Volume hospitals; and Generalist hospitals. These profiles covaried systematically with organizational characteristics (ownership type, size, payer mix) and community characteristics including minority composition and level of education. These findings point to new ways of thinking about managing the portfolio of surgical services offered by hospitals.