Table 2. Summary of the results in the analyzed systematic reviews.
| Review | Healthcare providers type | Type of ownership compared | Adjustment factors | Outcomes | ||
| Health | Economic | Managerial | ||||
| Berendes et al. 2011 | Ambulatory centers | Public vs PNFP-PFP* | None mentioned. | - | - | The formal private sector was better for drug availability, responsiveness, and effort. Overall, the median differences were modest and not statistically significant. |
| Comondore et al. 2009 | Nursing homes | Public and PNFP vs PFP | Age; Severity of illness (comorbidities); Presence or absence or severity of dementia; Payment status of residents (government funded vs privately funded). | - | - | PNFP nursing homes deliver higher quality care than do PFP nursing homes. “Quality of care” was most commonly measured as the number of staff per resident or level of training of staff, physical restraints, pressure ulcers, and regulatory (government surveys) deficiencies. |
| Devereaux et al. 2002 | Hemodyalisis centers | PNFP vs PFP | Age, race, and cause of end-stage renal disease. Also, income, education, number of years receiving dialysis, market share of the dialysis facility (ie, competition), and whether the dialysis facility was part of a multinational chain corporation. 2 studies had over-adjustments because of the inclusion of staffing land skill levels. | Hemodialysis care in PNFP centers is associated with a lower risk of mortality compared with care in PFP. | - | - |
| Devereaux et al. 2002 | Hospitals | PNFP vs PFP | Patients' severity of illness and socioeconomic status, hospital teaching status. | PFP hospitals were associated with an increased risk of death compared to PNFP. | - | - |
| Devereaux et al. 2004 | Hospitals | PNFP vs PFP | Age, sex, education, ethnicity, marital status, income, community living, number of activities of daily living, cognitive awareness, bladder/bowel control, comorbidity, primary diagnosis at index admission, market characteristics, year of index admission, number of hospital beds and hospital teaching status. Two studies were unadjusted. | - | PFP hospitals were associated with higher payments for care compared to PNFP. | - |
| Eggleston et al. 2008 | Hospitals | Public vs PNFP/PNFP vs PFP | Patients' case mix and demographics, hospital-level and market-level control variables. | Whether PFP and public hospitals have higher mortality rates or rates of adverse events than their PNFP counterparts depends on a study's data source as well as time period and region covered. | - | - |
| Montagu et al. 2011 | Primary, secondary and terciary levels of care | PFP and PNFP vs Public | Comorbidities, socioeconomic status. | Very low quality evidence shows that patients in private healthcare settings are less likely to die than patients in a public healthcare setting. Moderate quality evidence says that unsuccessfully completed tuberculosis treatment is higher in private than public healthcare settings. | - | - |
| Sibbel et al. 2012 | Acute care hospitals | PFP vs PNFP/PFP vs Public | None mentioned | - | Because of weaknesses and a variety of differences in the methodological structure of the studies a really convincing answer whether PFP hospitals are more efficient cannot be derived from the results. | - |
| Shen et al. 2007 | Hospitals | Public vs PNFP/PNFP vs PFP | Patients' case mix and demographics, hospital-level and market-level control variables. | - | Studies that control for a wider range of counfounding factors, and have transformed health care costs into logarithm when used as the dependent find statistically significant less differences between PNFP and PFP hospitals. No differences were found between public and PNFP hospitals. | - |
PNFP: private non-for-profit; PFP: private for-profit.
* Berendes et al. 2011 performed sub-group analyses with Sub-Saharian countries where they did separate between PFP and PNFP, but this was a secondary exploration. The main analysis in the paper was with this 2 types of ownership together.