Table 2.
Summary of study variables
| Variable | Description | Mean/freq | SD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inputs | |||
| Beds | Number of acute medical beds in a hospital by the reporting date of 31 December | 279.43 | 210.38 |
| Physicians | Annual average number of FTE physicians | 84.71 | 81.54 |
| Registered Nurses | Annual average number of FTE registered nurses (three years of apprenticeship), including the following professions: nurses, midwifes, surgical assistants, and medical assistants | 209.52 | 184.68 |
| Nurse assistants | Annual average number of FTE nurse assistants, including all nursing professions with fewer than three years of apprenticeship | 12.17 | 15.03 |
| Outputs | |||
| Adjusted inpatient discharges | Number of (weighted) inpatient discharges: case mix adjustment based on the relative LOS in different diagnostic categories | 10,687.06 | 8607.35 |
| Outpatient cases | Number of outpatient visits (hospitals count each outpatient contact by a patient with the organizational units) | 21,778.93 | 26,137.96 |
| Contextual factors | |||
| UrS | Average level of urgency across all main diagnoses of patients treated in the hospital in the reporting year | 0.44 | 0.13 |
| UrD | Standard deviation of the individual hospitals’ UrS | 0.31 | 0.05 |
| Ownership | Public (reference group) | 0.34 | |
| Private nonprofit | 0.44 | ||
| Private for-profit | 0.22 | ||
| Teaching status | Hospitals’ involvement in academic teaching, binary variable | 0.57 | |
| Competition | Herfindahl-Hirschman-Index (HHI), 32 km fixed radius, with 0 indicating less concentrated markets (high competition) and indicating 1 highly concentrated markets (low competition). | 0.16 | 0.12 |
| Location | Large cities: cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants (reference group) | 0.28 | |
| Urban district: districts with a population density of more than 300 inhabitants per km2 | 0.35 | ||
| Rural district: districts with a population density of more than 150 inhabitants per km2. | 0.18 | ||
| Remote district: districts with a population density of less than 150 inhabitants per km2 | 0.19 | ||
Pooled dataset with n = 4094; FTE fulltime equivalent, LOS length of stay, UrD within-hospital urgency dispersion, UrS urgency score