Private-equity acquisitions not necessarily bad, Harvard study finds
A year after a news
report uncovered resident care and ownership problems at nursing homes recently
purchased by private equity groups, a new report from Harvard Medical School
blunts the findings: Quality at nursing homes does not necessarily suffer, and,
in certain cases, care was actually shown to improve under new ownership. After
comparing the quality of care at private-equity owned nursing homes to
privately owned nursing homes, researchers discovered little to no causal
evidence supporting the belief that quality of care declines after corporate
takeover. More than 1,500 nursing homes were studied for the report. Last
September, a New York Times analysis asserted that private equity firms overlooked
care for the sake of profits, and that complicated corporate structures made it
hard for families of residents to sue facilities over poor care.
