Hospitalizations for Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions (ACSCs) are thought to be avoidable with effective preventive care and early disease management, usually delivered in community-based ambulatory care settings. These hospitalizations are both costly and sensitive to the socioeconomic situation of patients. Understanding whether different health systems mitigate the sensitivity of ACSCs to socioeconomic gradients may direct attention to equity-improving approaches to ambulatory health care. This study sought to identify differences in the gradient of Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions (ACSC) relative to socioeconomic status across nine countries, namely Australia, Canada, England, Finland, France, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States (US).

Outcomes after a hip repair in the older adult population are highly dependent on patients’ characteristics. However, contextual factors such as the hospital of treatment may have an impact not sufficiently studied. We aimed to elicit the effect of hospital providers on all-cause-adjusted mortality rates after hip fracture repair. Observational study on virtually all potentially eligible hip fracture patients treated in 2240 hospitals from Ontario (Canada), Aragon (Spain), Finland, Sweden, and the USA (40 states). The primary endpoint was the risk-adjusted all-cause mortality after hip repair measured 30 days and 180 days after surgery. Following a federated approach, GAMM-logit models were run for each region. Median odds ratio (MOR) were estimated to elicit the variation at hospital level. The study included 535 519 hip repairs. The overall predicted 30-day adjusted mortality rate was 40.5 per 1000 hip repair episodes; 136.3 per 1000 hip repair episodes in the 180-day adjusted mortality rate. 30- and 180-day adjusted mortality rates were larger within the regions than across regions. Variance in patients’ mortality at the hospital provider accounted for MOR: 1.43 in 30-day mortality and MOR: 1.35 in 180-day mortality. Beyond differences in the individual risk of death, our study found wide systemic variations in mortality rates in older adult patients exposed to hip fracture repair attributable to the hospital of treatment. Our results call for a reorientation of care pathways after hip repair in frail patients, both in the short- and the long-term.

The study underscores the importance of understanding and addressing variation in acute care utilization for mental health conditions, including the differential effect of COVID-19, across different health care systems. Further research is needed to elucidate the extent to which factors such as workforce capacity, access barriers, financial incentives, COVID-19 preparedness, and community-based care may contribute to these variations.

ICCONIC findings featured in a Guardian article.

Health systems across high-income countries have similar goals, which include maximizing quality of care, offering services responsive to patient needs, and ensuring efficient health care delivery. Health systems also face similar challenges, such as changing demographics, limited national resources, and ongoing rising health care costs.3 In response, national policy makers are working to identify effective strategies to address these challenges, which are heavily influenced by existing health system features. A group of particular concern is the growing number of high-need, high-cost (HNHC) patients, a clinically diverse set of patients with multiple medical needs, frailty, and multimorbidity. While constituting a relatively small proportion of the population, these patients account for a disproportionate share of medical expenditures across health systems.

Report of ICCONIC research to the Health Foundation.

Although there are cross-country differences in the availability and structure of data sources, countries had the ability to effectively identify comparable HNHC personas for international study. This work serves as the methodological paper for six accompanying papers examining differences in spending, utilization, and outcomes for these personas across countries.

ICCONIC work featured in a CMWF To The Point blog.

Across seven countries, we find important variations in end-of-life care for patients who sustained a hip fracture, with some differences explained by sex and age. Our work sheds important insights that may help ongoing health policy discussions on equity, efficiency, and reimbursement in health care systems.

Distribution of health care consumption in different settings varies within countries, but there are also some common treatment patterns across all countries. Clinicians and policy makers need to look into these differences in care utilization by sex and care setting to determine whether they are justified or indicate suboptimal care.

In this comparison of LTC services following a hip fracture, we found international differences in total use of institutional and noninstitutional care, longevity, and total expenditures. There exist opportunities to organize postacute care differently to maximize independence and mitigate costs.

Across 11 countries, there are meaningful differences in health system outcomes for two types of patients.