Hospitals Closed, Lives at Risk
A 10 percent increase in hospital mortality from heart attacks and an increase in length of stay: these are the effects of hospital closures highlighted by the study The impact of budget cuts on individual patient health: Causal evidence from hospital closures, published in the Journal of Health Economics by Simone Ghislandi (DONDENA, Bocconi), Anna-Theresa Renner (TU Wien) and Nirosha Elsem Varghese (CERGAS, Bocconi).
The analysis, conducted on acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients in Italy between 2008 and 2015, shows that increased travel time to the hospital is the main factor explaining the increase in mortality, underscoring the crucial importance of considering geographic accessibility to health care services in policy decisions regarding hospital network reorganizations.