As market pressures encourage health systems to consolidate, many community hospitals have established affiliations with top-ranked cancer care centers. Prior studies have suggested that care may be less safe at affiliates than at the cancer centers themselves. Researchers found that surgical outcomes were no different between cancer center–affiliated community hospitals when compared to nonaffiliated community hospitals after adjusting for hospital characteristics, patient characteristics, and secular trends.

This cross-sectional study examined outcomes for Medicare patients undergoing complex cancer surgery at U.S. News and World Report top-ranked cancer hospitals and their affiliates. Investigators found that surgery performed at affiliated hospitals was associated with higher 90-day mortality and that the top-ranked hospital was safer than its affiliates in 84% of the networks in the study. The authors suggest that while affiliated hospitals may share branding with top-ranked cancer facilities, further study of such networks is necessary to inform care for cancer patients.