Cost of low-risk childbirth varies widely among hospitals
2015-07-08
(Press-News.org) The cost of having a baby can vary by almost $10,000 depending on which hospital is chosen, Yale School of Medicine researchers have found in a study published in the July issue of the journal Health Affairs.
Childbirth is the leading cause of hospital admission in the United States, but there has been little research on the cost of delivery in hospitals across the country. To seek some answers, the Yale research team, led by Xiao Xu, assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale School of Medicine, studied data from the 2011 Nationwide Inpatient Sample of 463 hospitals across the country. The team found that there is a large variation in the average estimated hospital facility cost per maternity stay.
"The average estimated facility cost per maternity stay ranged from $1,189 to $11,986 with a 2.2-fold difference between the 10th and 90th percentile," said Xu. "Our results could inform discussions on potential cost-saving opportunities."
Xu and her team also found that hospitals with higher rates of cesarean delivery or serious maternal complications had significantly higher costs. However, adjustments for conventional hospital characteristics, such as teaching status, urban/rural location, volume of births, and the cesarean section rates, only explained a small proportion of the wide variation in estimated hospital facility costs for low-risk childbirths.
"Hospital practices might be an important contributor to the variation in costs, and there may be opportunities for cost reduction," said Xu. "These may include safely reducing cesarean deliveries, increasing the coordination of care, and emphasizing the value of care through new payment and delivery systems.
INFORMATION:
Other authors on the study included Aileen Gariepy, Lisbet S. Lundsberg, Sangini S. Sheth, Christian M. Pettker, Harlan Krumholz, and Jessica L. Illuzzi.
The study was supported by the McDevitt Award for Excellence in Research awarded by the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation. An author on the study also receives funding from the Yale Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) grant from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the National Institutes of Health.
Citation: Health Affairs
Link: Xiao Xu
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2015-07-08
MIAMI - New research on tropical coral reef ecosystems showed that releasing larvae more often is beneficial for a species' network. The study on reproductive strategies is critical to assess the conservation of coral reef ecosystems worldwide.
Researchers from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science used a computer model developed by UM Rosenstiel School scientist Claire Paris, known as the Connectivity Modeling System to track larval movements of three distinct reef species - the Carribean sea plume (Anthiellogorgia elisebeathae), ...
2015-07-08
Cancer cells defy the rules by which normal cells abide. They can divide without cease, invade distant tissues and consume glucose at abnormal rates.
Now a study by University of Pennsylvania researchers implicates defects in mitochondria, the energy-production centers of cells, as playing a key role in the transition from normal to cancerous. When the Penn scientists disrupted a key component of mitochondria, otherwise normal cells took on characteristics of cancerous tumor cells.
The research is published in the journal Oncogene and was led by members of the lab of ...
2015-07-08
Boulder, Colo., USA - Submarine landslides, also known as mass transport deposits (MTDs), are common in marine environments and pose risks to coastal communities and offshore infrastructure. This new 332-point database presented by Lorena Moscardelli and Lesli Wood is drawn from studies of multiple MTDs around the world. Understanding these MTDS, they write, will help determine the extent of ancient submarine landslides and contribute to the development geo-models for forecasting future submarine slides.
FEATURED ARTICLE
Morphometry of mass transport deposits as a predictive ...
2015-07-08
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Southern Californians and writers love to blame the hot, dry Santa Ana winds for tense, ugly moods, and the winds have long been associated with destructive wildfires.
Now, a new study finds that on occasion, the winds have an accomplice with respect to fires, at least: Natural atmospheric events known as stratospheric intrusions, which bring extremely dry air from the upper atmosphere down to the surface, adding to the fire danger effects of the Santa Anas, and exacerbating some air pollution episodes.
The findings suggest that forecast models with ...
2015-07-08
AROUND half of all breast cancer patients could one day benefit from having the cheap and widely-available female hormone progesterone added to their treatment, according to Cancer Research UK funded research published in Nature today (Thursday)*.
Tumours fuelled by the female hormone oestrogen are treated with drugs like tamoxifen to block oestrogen receptors, which cause cancer cells to grow.
Women whose tumours have progesterone receptors as well are known to have a better outlook. But for decades scientists have been unable to pinpoint why.
Scientists at Cancer ...
2015-07-08
From a Glacier's Perspective
Big Four glacier & ice caves, WA: a short future?
Early summer melting led to the collapse of Washington ice caves, the death of one person, and the injury of five others. Mauri Pelto asks questions about the future of Washington's Big Four glacier on his blog From a Glacier's Perspective.
Eos.org
Learning geoscience by doing geoscience
A pilot project helps teachers bring scientific practice into the classroom.
New research papers
Response of the Amazon carbon balance to the 2010 drought derived with CarbonTracker South America, ...
2015-07-08
Researchers have developed a new approach for better integrating medical devices with biological systems. The researchers, led by Bozhi Tian, assistant professor in chemistry at the University of Chicago, have developed the first skeleton-like silicon spicules ever prepared via chemical processes.
"Using bone formation as a guide, the Tian group has developed a synthetic material from silicon that shows potential for improving interaction between soft tissue and hard materials," said Joe Akkara, a program director in the National Science Foundation materials research ...
2015-07-08
Tropical Depression 4E formed in the Eastern Pacific and crossed the 140 West longitude line as of the 0300 UTC time, which brought it into the Central Pacific Ocean. NOAA's GOES-West satellite captured an infrared image of the depression at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EDT) on July 8 that showed the large storm in the Central Pacific.
At 8 p.m. PDT/11 p.m. EDT on July 7, (0300 UTC on July 8), the center of newly formed Tropical Depression Four-E was located near latitude 15.4 North, longitude 140.2 West. The depression was moving toward the west-northwest near 17 mph (28 kph) and ...
2015-07-08
Rice University researchers have built a simulation to show how cancerous tumors manipulate blood-vessel growth for their own benefit.
Like all cells, those in tumors need access to the body's fine network of blood vessels to bring them oxygen and carry away waste. Tumors have learned to game the process called angiogenesis in which new vessels sprout from existing ones, like branches from a tree.
But some details have been hidden until now.
The ability to stop tumors through anti-angiogenesis is one goal of cancer therapy. The new work by scientists at Rice's Center ...
2015-07-08
July 8, 2015 - A recent CDC report calls into question the widely reported belief that Black fathers are more absent in their children's lives than White fathers - showing that while more Black fathers live apart from their children, they are just as involved with their children as members of other racial groups in the same living situations. So why is it that messages about Black absentee fathers, such as Obama's 2008 Father's Day address, are so pervasive in society?
A new paper, published today in Social Psychological and Personality Science, suggests that such messages ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Cost of low-risk childbirth varies widely among hospitals
