Consolidation Trends Highlighted in AHRQ’s Updated Compendium of U.S. Health Systems

A new version of AHRQ’s Compendium of U.S. Health Systems provides first-time data that allow researchers, policymakers and healthcare administrators to assess patterns in health system consolidation as well as changes in the landscape of health systems over time. A new Health Affairs blog cites 2018 data that’s been added to the compendium and highlights key characteristics of U.S. health systems:

Of 637 health systems in the United States, most operated in a single state and were owned by a nonprofit organization or a state or local government.
There was substantial variation in system size, including a small number of very large for-profit and church-operated systems that operated in two or more states.
The largest health systems had more than 10,000 hospital beds and/or 10,000 physicians.

The compendium was developed by AHRQ’s Comparative Health System Performance Initiative, which studies how healthcare delivery systems promote evidence-based practices and patient-centered outcomes research in delivering care.