Centralisation Efforts to Improve the Quality of Care and Reduce the Costs in Healthcare Systems

Efforts to improve the quality of healthcare and reduce costs in healthcare systems often focus on centralising care in high-volume hospital units. Worldwide hospital consolidation has increased over the last few years; in the United States, it is predicted that 20% of all hospitals will seek a merger in the next 5 years (Creswell and Abelson 2013). In some Nordic countries (e.g. Denmark), some level of centralisation has already occurred; but in other countries, this process has been less pronounced to date, due to challenges like isolating geography or long distances between hospitals (e.g. Norway).