Back to Search
Start Over
Multicentre methodological study to create a publicly available score of hospital financial standing in the USA.
- Source :
-
BMJ open [BMJ Open] 2021 Jul 23; Vol. 11 (7), pp. e046500. Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Jul 23. - Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- Objectives: To create a straightforward scoring procedure based on widely available, inexpensive financial data that provides an assessment of the financial health of a hospital.<br />Design: Methodological study.<br />Setting: Multicentre study.<br />Participants: All hospitals and health systems reporting the required financial metrics in the USA in 2017 were included for a total of 1075 participants.<br />Interventions: We examined a list of 232 hospital financial indicators and used existing models and financial literature to select 30 metrics that sufficiently describe hospital operations. In a set of hospital financial data from 2017, we used principal coordinate analysis to assess collinearity among variables and eliminated redundant variables. We isolated 10 unique variables, each assigned a weight equal to the share of its coefficient in a regression onto Moody's Credit Rating, our predefined gold standard. The sum of weighted variables is a single composite score named the Yale Hospital Financial Score (YHFS).<br />Primary Outcome Measures: Ability to reproduce both financial trends from a 'gold-standard' metric and known associations with non-fiscal data.<br />Results: The validity of the YHFS was evaluated by: (1) cross-validating it with previously excluded data; (2) comparing it to existing models and (3) replicating known associations with non-fiscal data. Ten per cent of the initial dataset had been reserved for validation and was not used in creating the model; the YHFS predicts 96.7% of the variation in this reserved sample, demonstrating reproducibility. The YHFS predicts 90.5% and 88.8% of the variation in Moody's and Standard and Poor's bond ratings, respectively, supporting its validity. As expected, larger hospitals had higher YHFS scores whereas a greater share of Medicare discharges correlated with lower YHFS scores.<br />Conclusions: We created a reliable and publicly available composite score of hospital financial stability.<br />Competing Interests: Competing interests: RC is the president of Merritt Research Services, a data and research provider of credit information related to municipal bonds.<br /> (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)
- Subjects :
- Aged
Humans
Reproducibility of Results
United States
Hospitals
Medicare
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 2044-6055
- Volume :
- 11
- Issue :
- 7
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- BMJ open
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 34301654
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-046500