The outmigration of hospital care visualised
As Mediclinic expands its day surgery capacity, this week’s infographic visualises the outmigration of hospital care in three infographics.
While much has been made of the move to doing procedures on a day basis instead of an inpatient one, forward-thinking policymakers, payors and operators have also sought to reduce average length of stay (AVLOS) for those patients that do require overnight stays for procedures. The map below shows changes how OECD countries have reduced or increased their AVLOS across public and private hospitals from 2005 to 2016.
There is a noticeable pattern of Nordic countries making strides in reducing hospital stays while their southern and certain CEE neighbours (at least those for whom data is available) lag some way behind, with Portugal, Spain and Italy barely reducing their figures with the latter actually going up. Norway is an exception in its region but still sports a lower AVLOS than most countries on the map.
Next, we button down on a country which releases data on its for-profit sector to a greater degree than anwhere else: France. The first infographic shows the for-profit hospital sector markedly shifting to outpatient activity, much more so than the public sector has done. This is in response to steep tariff cuts to inpatient care with small increases in outpatient ones (the second infographic, one from an earlier piece).
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Cameron Murray or call 0207 183 3779.