- Title
- Bed availability and hospital utilization: estimates of the "Roemer effect".
- First Author
- Ginsburg, Paul B
- Date of Pub
- 1983 Fall
- Pages
- 87-92
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 1
- Other Authors
- Koretz, Daniel M
- Abstract
- Roemer's Law, the notion that an increase in the number of hospital beds per capita increases hospital utilization rates, is an important underpinning of efforts to control hospital construction through health planning. Attempts to measure the magnitude of the effect have yielded results ranging from no effect to a one-to-one relationship. The present study, by restricting its inquiry to Medicare patients and using a unique data base, avoids many of the shortcomings of earlier studies. This study concludes that an increase of 10 percent in hospital bed per capita would increase hospital utilization by Medicare enrollees by about 4 percent.
- Abstract Continued
- N/A
- MeSH
- Hospital Bed Capacity : Hospital Planning : Hospitals/utilization : Medicare/utilization : Statistics : United States
- NTIS Number
- PB84-125715
