"Does Higher Hospital Quality Save Lives? The Association between" "COVID-19 Deaths and Hospital Quality in the USA

Carol Propper and Johannes Kunz

No 15105, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper examines the association between the quality of hospitals to which residents of a US county are exposed and deaths from COVID-19. We derive a measure of the hospitals accessible to county residents based on ambulance travel patterns. We estimate hospital quality from measures of performance used in a flagship national pay-for-performance program. We find that a standard deviation in local quality- exposure is associated with a roughly 9% lower death rate. The preventive effects of access to high quality hospitals vary sharply by minority composition of the local population.

Keywords: Covid-19; county-level deaths; hospital quality; health care systems; minorities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H51 I11 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07
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