| About two-thirds or 2,900 of hospitals in the United States are not-for-profit (NFP) organizations that operate under the 501(c)3 tax code and provide some level of benefit to the community. The community benefit provision legitimizes the operations of these hospital organizations be cause of the benefit they provide in the community. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), requires hospitals to conduct a community health needs assessment to address health gaps in their community. NFP hospitals are then required to outline both expenditures and activities they have adopted to meet the objectives in the community health needs assessment. This research investigated the relationship between community benefit and health outcomes, such as rates of diabetes, stroke, heart disease and myocardial infarction and provided a broader picture of how hospitals are meeting community needs and improving the health of the population they serve. Based on a multi-level logistic regression analysis, heart disease, myocardial infarction, and stroke were not influenced significantly by expenditures and also did not influence whether or not an individual was diagnosed with these diseases. Other variables such as income, age, and ethnicity seemed to have more influence on these diagnoses. However, the variable expenditure (in millions) was significant at a 10% level for diabetes. |
