Integration and task allocation
Subtitle: evidence from patient care
By: Guy David, Evan Rawley, Daniel Polsky
Contributors: Rawley, Evan; Polsky, Daniel; National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 17419; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 17419.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.  You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.  We develop a formal model to show how integration solves task allocation problems between organizations and test the predictions of the model, using a large and rich patient-level dataset on hospital discharges to nursing homes and home health care.  As predicted by the theory, we find that vertical integration allows hospitals to shift patient recovery tasks downstream to lower cost delivery systems by discharging patients earlier and in poorer health, and integration leads to greater post-hospitalization service intensity.  While integration facilitates a shift in the allocation of tasks, health outcomes are no worse when patients receive care from an integrated provider.  The evidence suggests that by improving the allocation of tasks, integration solves coordination problems that arise in market exchange"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 12/1/2011.

Includes bibliographical references.

Also available in print.

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Mode of access: World Wide Web.