Fewer deaths from heart attacks following hospital takeoversInvestment rather than market power – recent study shows an improvement in the quality of acute emergency care following hospital takeovers
20 August 2026, by Hannes Rathjen
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When a hospital is taken over by a new operator, public concern often centres on cost-cutting measures and a decline in the standard of care. A recent nationwide study by Dr Esra Eren Bayindir and Prof. Dr Jonas Schreyögg from the Hamburg Centre for Health Economics (HCHE) at the University of Hamburg, together with Prof. Dr Reinhard Busse from the Technical University of Berlin (TUB), now demonstrates the opposite: following hospital mergers, patients’ chances of survival in acute emergencies such as heart attacks can improve significantly. As the research team reports in the renowned medical journal The Lancet Regional Health – Europe, the 30-day excess mortality following an acute heart attack fell by 1.24 percentage points in acquired German hospitals – which, given a baseline mortality rate of 12.82 per cent, corresponds to a relative reduction of around one-tenth.
Further information can be found in the press release (in German). Click here for the study “Hospital acquisitions and 30-day mortality after acute myocardial infarction and stroke in Germany: a quasi-experimental cohort study”.
