Hospitals Do Better When Run by Doctors

In its "Well" blog, the New York Times examined new research published in the journal Social Science & Medicine that found that "overall hospital quality scores were about 25 percent higher when doctors" rather than business administrators ran hospitals, and "for cancer care, doctor-run hospitals posted scores 33 percent higher." The research is "based on a review of 300 top-ranked American hospitals in the specialties of cancer, digestive disorders and heart surgery" and was done by senior researcher Amanda Goodall of the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany. She "said the finding was consistent with her research in other fields, which has shown, among other things, that research universities perform better when led by outstanding scholars and that basketball teams perform better when led by former top players." Still, she said she "was surprised by the strength of the finding."