Are Health Outcomes for U.S. Elders Improving or Worsening?

Various U.S. healthcare initiatives have focused on improving care delivery, systems of care, and individual health during the past 2 decades. With that in mind, investigators used a cross-sectional design to assess more than 68 million Medicare beneficiaries to determine outcome trends from 1999 to 2013.

They noted significant declines in annual mortality (from 5.3% to 4.5%), number of hospitalizations per 100,000 population (≈8300 fewer per year), and per-person inflation-adjusted expenditures (≈US$500 lower annually) during that 15-year period. Improvements were consistent geographically across the U.S.