TY  - JOUR
T1  - COst of obstetric services-reply
AU  - Hein HA, Ferguson NN
Y1  - 1979/03/30
N1  - 10.1001/jama.1979.03290390014012
JO  - JAMA
SP  - 1326
EP  - 1326
VL  - 241
IS  - 13
N2  - We hope our article is not being used as a defense for freestanding obstetric services of any size. We feel strongly that all obstetric services should be linked to a referral center, and this linkage should include regular patient care review and appropriate remedial education.A careful review of the article will show that we did not attempt to show that small hospitals are more cost-effective than large hospitals. Such a study would be practically impossible, since methods of cost accounting vary widely among hospital administrators. Rather, we hoped to draw attention to the fact that health planners are unpersuasive in their argument that consolidation of obstetric services will improve the quality of care and the efficiency of the service (240:2070, 1978; 240:2051, 1978). Our data are really straightforward. They show what the patient pays for basic services in the different hospital categories. We cannot make any attempt
SN  - 0098-7484
M3  - doi: 10.1001/jama.1979.03290390014012
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1979.03290390014012
ER  -