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Understanding the Safety Net: Inpatient Quality of Care Varies Based on How One Defines Safety-Net Hospitals

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mmchugh{at}aha.org.

	Abstract

A challenge to investigating quality of care at safety-net hospitals is the absence of a standard method for identifying these hospitals. The authors identified three different, commonly used approaches for classifying hospitals as safety-net providers. Analyzing national data on hospital demographics and quality of care, they found little overlap among these three sets of hospitals. Under two definitions, safety-net providers clearly underperformed on quality compared with non-safety-net providers; under a third definition, results were mixed. How one defines safety-net providers can affect health services research outcomes and policy recommendations.

First published on April 27, 2009, doi:10.1177/1077558709334895

Medical Care Research and Review 2009;66:590.

A more recent version of this article appeared on October 1, 2009


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