Study finds hospitals of last resort deliver lower quality of lung cancer care
Friday, September 9, 2011 - 10:00
in Health & Medicine
A new study finds that lung cancer patients treated in hospitals that care for a high percentage of uninsured and Medicaid-insured patients, so-called "high safety-net burden facilities," were significantly less likely to undergo surgery that was intended to cure the cancer compared to patients treated at low safety-net burden facilities. This difference persisted even after controlling for other factors that significantly decreased the likelihood of curative-intent surgery, such as race, insurance status, stage, and female gender as well as other hospital characteristics.