Hospitals’ Financial Health in Rural and Urban Areas in Poland: Does It Ensure Sustainability?

Agnieszka Bem, Rafał Siedlecki, Paweł Prędkiewicz, Patrizia Gazzola (), Bożena Ryszawska and Paulina Ucieklak-Jeż
Additional contact information
Agnieszka Bem: Department of Corporate Finance and Public Finance, Wrocław University of Economics, 53-345 Wrocław, Poland
Rafał Siedlecki: Department of Corporate Finance and Public Finance, Wrocław University of Economics, 53-345 Wrocław, Poland
Bożena Ryszawska: Department of Corporate Finance and Public Finance, Wrocław University of Economics, 53-345 Wrocław, Poland
Paulina Ucieklak-Jeż: Faculty of Philology and History, Jan Dlugosz University in Czestochowa, 42-200 Częstochowa, Poland

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 7, 1-17

Abstract: Literature review suggests that rural hospitals are in the worst financial conditions due to several factors: They are smaller, located in remote areas, and they provide less specialized services due to their problems with employing well-qualified staff. We decided to check whether it is true in the case of Polish hospitals. Based on the literature review, we have assumed that rural hospitals have less favorable financial conditions. In order to verify this assumption, we use seven indicators of financial health as well as a synthetic measure of financial condition. We have found that, in fact, there is no difference in financial condition between rural and urban hospitals, or even that the financial health of rural hospitals is better if we employ the synthetic measure. Additionally, we have found that the form of activity can be a crucial driver of better financial performance. The concept of rural sustainability is supported by good financial conditions of rural hospitals, which helps to provide better access to medical services for inhabitants of rural areas.

Keywords: hospital; rural and urban hospitals; healthcare; sustainable rural health; the financial condition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/7/1932/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/7/1932/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:7:p:1932-:d:218981

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().