Q&A
General effects of hospital closures on communities and surrounding hospitals
0:44:55
·
90 sec
Dr. Michelle Morse and Dr. Laura Iavicoli discuss the general impacts of hospital closures on communities and surrounding hospitals. They explain that closures lead to ripple effects, forcing community members to seek care elsewhere and potentially overwhelming nearby hospitals.
- Hospital closures disrupt established patient-provider relationships
- Surrounding hospitals typically experience increased patient loads
- The healthcare system in urban areas is described as an interconnected ecosystem
Dr. Michelle Morse
0:44:55
Thank you for asking a question about recent history.
0:45:00
From what we know, of course, anytime there is a hospital closure, there are ripple effects on the community that's at hospital serves.
0:45:11
We don't need research studies necessarily to tell us that if a hospital closes, the community that use that hospital will have to seek care in other places either in that specific community if there are other hospitals available or elsewhere.
0:45:28
So our general sense, of course, is that if a hospital closes, the impacts on the community that it serves will be that those pay those community members will need to seek care elsewhere, and they also will lose the the relationship that they have with the providers of the hospital that closed.
0:45:48
In general, we would, of course, just assume that the surrounding hospitals would have more patients to see if a hospital closes because the people seeking care in that community would need to seek care elsewhere in that local community.
0:46:05
And I'll pass to Doctor Yamakoli in case she would like to add.
Laura Iavicoli
0:46:09
I mean, I would just echo the same thing that Doctor.
0:46:12
Moore said.
0:46:12
I mean, it is, you know, in a densely urban center, it is a healthcare ecosystem, and there will be effects if one of the hospital closes in that ecosystem on the surrounding hospitals in that area.
