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The Anatomy of a Hospital System Merger: The Patient Did Not Respond Well to Treatment

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  • Martin Gaynor
  • Adam Sacarny
  • Raffaella Sadun
  • Chad Syverson
  • Shruthi Venkatesh

Abstract

Despite the continuing US hospital merger wave, it remains unclear how mergers change, or fail to change, hospital behavior and performance. We open the “black box” of hospital practices through a mega-merger between two for-profit chains. Benchmarking the merger’s effects against the acquirer’s stated aims, we show they achieved some of their goals, harmonizing electronic medical records and sending managers to target hospitals. Post-acquisition managerial processes were similar across the merged chain. However, these interventions failed to drive detectable gains in performance. Our findings demonstrate the importance of organizations for merger research in health care and the economy more generally.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Gaynor & Adam Sacarny & Raffaella Sadun & Chad Syverson & Shruthi Venkatesh, 2021. "The Anatomy of a Hospital System Merger: The Patient Did Not Respond Well to Treatment," NBER Working Papers 29449, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29449
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D22 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis
    • I11 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Analysis of Health Care Markets
    • M12 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Personnel Management; Executives; Executive Compensation

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