What Researchers Did
Researchers looked at how often five medical services with little or no proven benefit, including hyperbaric oxygen therapy, were provided in Australian public hospitals, and whether this differed based on whether a patient had private insurance.
What They Found
This retrospective study analyzed New South Wales public hospital records from January 2013 to June 2018 to measure hospital-specific rates of five low-value services by patient funding status. Across the five measures, a total of 219,862 inpatients were included, with 162,285 patients eligible for the hyperbaric oxygen therapy measure (50.6% women, 17.4% aged 61 to 70). Sample sizes for the other four services ranged from 776 to 38,365 patients. The abstract states that overall rates of these low-value services varied considerably between measures, but does not provide the specific comparison results by insurance status.
Canadian Relevance
No direct Canadian connection identified. This study used New South Wales, Australia hospital data and Australian researchers.
Study Limitations
This is a retrospective, observational study of a single Australian state's hospital data, so it cannot establish cause and effect, and the abstract provided here is incomplete, cutting off before the full comparison results by insurance status are reported.