A study led by Health Policy and Management Professor and Chair Thomas LaVeist explored the association between quality of care for surgical and pneumonia patients and the racial/ethnic composition of hospitals' patients. Published in the Journal of General and Family Medicine, the study used data from the 2012 Medicare Hospital Compare Data, the 2011 American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals, and the Healthcare Costs and Utilization Project.
They found quality differences between the lowest performing minority-serving, racially integrated, and majority-white hospitals. However, their data showed that the best minority-serving and racially integrated hospitals performed as well as the best majority hospitals.
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