For-profit long-term care facilities have significantly higher rates of mortality and hospital admissions than their not-for-profit counterparts, new research has found.
The study examined admissions at 384 for-profit and 256 not-for-profit long-term care facilities in Ontario, Canada, between January 2010 and March 2012. One year after admission, the for-profit facilities showed an overall mortality rate of 207.5 residents per 1,000 person-years, compared to a rate of 184 for not-for-profit facilities. The hospitalization rate for for-profit facilities at the one year mark was 462.4 per 1,000 person-years, while the rate for not-for-profit facilities was 358.0.
“It has been hypothesized that differences in outcomes may be related to reinvestments that not-for-profit facilities make into patient care that otherwise would be consumed as profit in for-profit facilities,” wrote lead researcher Peter Tanuseputro, M.D.
Researchers said the differences could be due to not-for-profit facilities being more closely associated with acute care facilities, the level of a facility’s ties to the community, differences in capital funding and whether a facility is associated with a chain.
Full results of the study appeared in The Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
