Publications by authors named "Ciara E Duggan"
Purpose: As US hospital markets become increasingly consolidated, empirical evidence is needed on the clinical and financial impacts of mergers on care provided by rural hospitals. We identified characteristics of rural hospitals that underwent mergers or acquisitions and examined changes in profitability, clinical outcomes, and patient experience at acquired versus non-acquired rural hospitals.
Methods: We identified 145 rural US hospitals that underwent merger or acquisition between 2009 and 2014 and 906 rural non-acquired control hospitals.
Background: There has been a marked rise in the use of observation care for Medicare beneficiaries visiting the emergency department (ED) in recent years. Whether trends in observation use differ for people with Alzheimer's disease and Alzheimer's disease-related dementias (AD/ADRD) is unknown.
Methods: Using a national 20% sample of Medicare beneficiaries ages 68+ from 2012 to 2018, we compared trends in ED visits and observation stays by AD/ADRD status for beneficiaries visiting the ED.
Background: Older adults, particularly those with Alzheimer's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease Related Dementias (AD/ADRD), have high rates of emergency department (ED) visits and are at risk for poor outcomes. How best to measure quality of care for this population has been debated. Healthy Days at Home (HDAH) is a broad outcome measure reflecting mortality and time spent in facility-based healthcare settings versus home.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Studies suggest that academic medical centers (AMCs) have better outcomes than nonteaching hospitals. However, whether AMCs have spillover benefits for patients treated at neighboring community hospitals is unknown.
Objective: To examine whether market-level AMC presence is associated with outcomes for patients treated at nonteaching hospitals within the same markets.