Editorial in the Journal of General Internal Medicine Regarding Hospital Profit Margins
U.S. hospitals, most of which are nonprofit, are mired in a toxic cycle that rewards bad behavior from their leaders, neglects patient needs and promotes an obsession with increasing profits, according to an editorial by Public Citizen Health Research Group founder and senior adviser, Dr. Sidney Wolfe, and colleagues Drs. Steffie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein at the City University of New York at Hunter College, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The editorial is in response to an article by researchers Dan Ly and David Cutler, who examined how successful hospitals improved operating margins and patient care.