Do Busy Hospitals Mean Better Care for Medical Patients?

Previous studies on surgical and medical procedures have shown that higher hospital volumes for specific procedures translate to lower mortality. Whether this observation holds true for acute medical illnesses is less clear.

Investigators examined Medicare data for patients who were hospitalized from 2004 through 2006 with diagnoses of acute myocardial infarction, pneumonia, or heart failure. Using the number of annual admissions for these conditions, hospitals were classified as large-, medium- or small-volume for each condition. The investigators analyzed the association between all-cause 30-day mortality and hospital volume for each condition and calculated the volume threshold, above which mortality for each condition no longer improved …