Mukamel D, Zwanziger J & Bamezai A, (2002)

‘Hospital Competition, Resource Allocation and Quality of Care’

BMC Health Services Research 2:10

• Investigates the effect of changing the type of competition (not the level of competition), from quality-based to price-based competition, on hospital behaviour and patient mortality.
• Uses data from California to test the hypothesis that in a price-competitive environment, hospitals will shift resources from activities related to clinical services, which are not easily observed and evaluated by patients, into hotel services which are easily observed.

Key results:

• In for-profit hospitals the marginal effect of competition was not statistically significant.
• In not-for-profit hospitals, the marginal effect of competition fell over time, but fell faster in clinical services than in hotel services.

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