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Amenities Vs. Quality...

...which is more important to consumers as they choose a hospital? Research from RAND economists says plush accommodations might just trump high clinical quality.
"From the patient perspective, hospital quality therefore embodies amenities as well as clinical quality. We also find that a one-standard-deviation increase in amenities raises a hospital's demand by 38.4% on average, whereas demand is substantially less responsive to clinical quality as measured by pneumonia mortality."
RAND may be right, more's the pity. As if further proof was needed that 4 decades of internecine warfare over health care quality - how to define it, measure it, improve it and communicate it - has left consumers utterly baffled about how to make quality-based choices. Depressingly, many old-school obstructionists seem to prefer it that way. They're the ones reading this research and saying "Told ya so! Consumers don't understand quality and they don't buy quality!"

Just because they don't doesn't mean they're unable or never will. I'm siding with those who won't tolerate being ignored, patronized or information-deprived forever.


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