Variations in surgical safety according to affiliation status with a top-ranked cancer hospital.
As market pressures encourage health systems to consolidate, many community hospitals have established affiliations with top-ranked cancer care centers. Prior studies have suggested that care may be less safe at affiliates than at the cancer centers themselves. Researchers found that surgical outcomes were no different between cancer center–affiliated community hospitals when compared to nonaffiliated community hospitals after adjusting for hospital characteristics, patient characteristics, and secular trends.