Table 3.
Estimates of the Change in the Growth Rate of Uncompensated Care in the Transition to and Initial Period of Minimum Nurse Staffing Regulations Relative to Quartile of Hospitals with the Highest Pre-Regulation Nurse Staffing Levelsa,b
| Period | Staffing Quartileb,c | County | District | For-Profit | Not For-Profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transition | 1 | −0.138* (0.060) | 0.028 (0.093) | −0.161* (0.072) | −0.073 (0.089) |
| 2 | −0.136 (0.102) | 0.051 (0.134) | −0.021 (0.182) | 0.021 (0.054) | |
| 3 | −0.192*** (0.053) | 0.147 (0.178) | −0.226* (0.104) | 0.009 (0.065) | |
| Post-Regulation | 1 | −0.022 (0.046) | 0.098 (0.084) | −0.250*** (0.043) | −0.049 (0.064) |
| 2 | −0.060 (0.134) | −0.022 (0.121) | −0.088 (0.110) | −0.023 (0.046) | |
| 3 | −0.158 (0.088) | −0.071 (0.128) | −0.195* (0.089) | −0.015 (0.042) |
These estimates are obtained in a regression which also contains dummy variables for ownership type, a full set of staffing quartile-ownership dummy interactions, pseudo-dummy variables for year, dummy variables for hospitals in the highest and second highest quartile of seismic risk, number of residents per bed, natural log of the number of acute care beds, a dummy variable for system membership, Herfindahl Index, natural log of inpatient days per 1,000 population, number of HMOs, HMO penetration, natural log of per capital income, percentage of population over 65, and the unemployment rate.
Standard errors (in parentheses) beneath the estimates are adjusted for non-independence of observations within hospitals.
Staffing quartile 1 contains the hospitals that, relative to the staffing regulations, had the largest percent staffing shortfall or smallest staffing surplus.
No estimates are reported for the fourth quartile because estimates represent, by ownership type, differences from the quartile of hospitals with the highest pre-regulation nurse staffing levels.
Significant at the 0.05 level.
Significant at the 0.001 level