Hospitals are often stereotyped as providers of acute care services. In fact, acute care accounts for a relatively small portion of total hospital services. As noted a few days ago , costs per acute care patient (or, more exactly, per "weighted case") in Ontario are significantly below the national average, coming in at $5,174 in 2010-11 (and $5,184 in 2011-12). There was 1,484,046 weighted acute care (and newborn) cases in 2010-11 in Ontario. So the total acute inpatient cost is about $7,678,454,004. In 2010-11, the total hospital sector expense (funded from both government and other sources) was $20.6 billion according to figures in the 2010 Budget . As a result, acute care spending amounts to only 37.2% of all hospital spending. In other words, acute care is a significant part of hospital activity --but it is in a decided minority in overall scheme of things going on at hospitals. Good news for P3 p...
Notes from Leftwords -- Doug Allan