Exploring the Association between Quality and Financial Performance in U.S. Hospitals: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Hospital reimbursements are being tied to Quality Performance more every day. With this being the case, some hospitals have been financially penalized due to their relative low quality scores. Despite the strengthening bond between quality and financial performance, there seems to be lack of attention by researchers about this relationship. This study aims to explore the relationship between financial performance and quality in US Hospitals by conducting a systematic review of the literature.  The search of three well-established databases including PubMed, ABI Inform, and Scopus generated 3,303 manuscripts. After excluding articles by a priori criteria (i.e., non-empirical, non-relevant, duplicates,), 13 manuscripts remained for abstraction. This is the first systematic review that focuses on the relationship between quality and financial performance among US hospitals. The finding of limited numbers of studies indicates that the research on the link between quality and financial performance is in its infancy at best. Therefore, there is a need for additional studies that are concerned with the relationship between healthcare quality and financial performance.