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According to statistics from studies done in Korea, specialized hospitals often did better in several categories-

-short term mortality rates

-efficiency

-patient satisfaction

-income

The most important factor to the average person of course is efficiency. The evidence is overwhelming that in the United States as well as worldwide, people receive better care in specialized hospitals. Mortality rates are lower, operations have higher chances of succeeding, patients receive more attention, and fewer mistakes occur.

It is not only proven by evidence that specialized hospitals increase the positive medical outcomes of their patients, but it is also logical. Just as doctors specialize to optimize efficiency, so must hospitals.

The question whether or not to create specialized hospitals has been answered.

The problem lies in the ratio of specialized hospitals to general hospitals. Specialized hospitals often generate far more income because people of means seek them out for the best care. This cycle is exacerbated by the best and brightest doctors actively seeking positions at these hospitals.

This leaves general purpose hospitals to deal with higher ratios of poor people unable to afford better care and often unable to pay back the hospital for care. The lack of money and prestige creates a painfully obvious class system of hospitilazation, where the affluent go to specialized hospitals to be serviced by the best doctors with much better caregiver to patient to ratios and much better odds of surviving.

As of now, in a privatized healthcare industry, the freemarket is operating as efficiently and mercilessly as everywhere else in society. The best doctors, technology, and resources are consumed by specialized hospitals that generate self sustaining profits, while general health hospitals are forced to deal with overwhelming numbers of a poor, diseased populace, that drain the hospital of its services, rendering it cyclically more and more inefficient. The most lucrative operations and services are performed mostly at the specialized hospitals. It almost seems wrong to think of hospitals as money making entities, but they are. And their level of wealth is a good indicator of the treatment you will receive there and your odds of a good medical outcome.

So should hospitals specialize? Yes. However, a socialized healthcare system would help level the majority of the playing field as far as resources were concerned, so that the people being treated at specialized hospitals would be people who actually needed more expertise, rather than people of more affluence able to afford better treatment.

Learn more about this author, Jonathan Jones.
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