New interactive tool tracks private equity investments in health care across U.S.

A new interactive tool launched on September 8th allows users to explore private equity investments in U.S. healthcare on a state-by-state basis from 2015 to 2023. Developed by researchers at Brown University's Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research, the Private Equity State Tracker fills a gap in publicly available information about private equity transactions, which are often undisclosed due to their private nature.

The tool maps over 6,000 private equity investments, including acquisitions of physician practices and hospitals, and enables users to examine these investments by state, county, and ZIP code, as well as within specific physician specialties such as primary care, orthopedics, or oncology. Researchers found that states where a higher proportion of doctors work for hospitals tend to have less private equity involvement, while states with fewer doctors employed by hospitals tend to have more.

According to Yashaswini Singh, an assistant professor involved in the project, the tracker aims to shift the conversation about private equity from ideological debates to evidence-based policymaking. By providing accessible data on the rapid growth of private equity investments in healthcare, the tool hopes to help policymakers and the public understand the extent of private equity activity in their own states and inform policy decisions regarding healthcare ownership and consolidation.