By JANET LEWIS-WOLFMAN | STAFF STAFF | APRIL 29, 2019 07:11:21More than half of the 1,400 U.S. hospitals surveyed by The Wall St. Journal are expected to close within the next decade, according to a new report from Avalere Health.
The study, conducted by Avalere in collaboration with the National Association of Community Health Centers, also found that a significant portion of Americans do not want to visit a hospital.
The poll found that about one-third of respondents were opposed to seeing a doctor because of cost, and about two-thirds did not want a doctor to see their spouse or children.
More than a quarter of the respondents did not feel comfortable seeing a physician because of the price, while nearly half said they would consider switching to another provider, such as a private health care system.
And the vast majority of respondents said they are concerned about the quality of care at their local hospitals, with half saying they were either very or somewhat concerned about their care.
The Avalere study, “Hospitals in the United States: A Survey of Community Based Care in 2020,” was released today and is based on the results of a survey of 2,200 people from Jan. 2 to May 8.
It found that health care spending has been on the decline for years.
In 2015, it was estimated that the U.N. agency that oversees global health spending spent about $3 trillion on health care.
But the United Nations’ International Development Finance and Investment Program reported that spending dropped to $3.7 trillion in 2020, down from $5.2 trillion in 2015.
The U.K. government reported last week that health spending was at its lowest level since at least 1999.
The U.R.O.A. has a $10 billion fund that helps to finance hospitals.
The findings of the Avalere survey suggest that many Americans are uncomfortable with the quality and safety of care provided by hospitals.
The survey found that nearly half of respondents did never or rarely visit a doctor, while about half of those surveyed said they were not comfortable with the medical environment they are in.
One-third said they do not believe that hospitals are doing enough to improve their patient care, and three-quarters said they felt unsafe visiting a hospital because of security concerns, lack of information about how health care is delivered and a lack of knowledge about the patient population.
About one-quarter said they have lost confidence in the quality or safety of a hospital due to the lack of transparency about how it is delivering health care and the lack to provide adequate care to patients, the report said.
The survey of 1,200 adults was conducted online and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.