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The rising costs of providing health care and the changes in payment systems are having an obvious impact on hospitals' bottom line. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), [...]

Abstract. Many hospitals have initiated a strategy to reduce costs and improve quality of care by using physicians as 'hospitalists.' A hospitalist specializes in inpatient care. This article reports the [...]

Survey data on physician-hospital integrated delivery systems are analyzed. Additional information on the emergent areas of physician-hospital integration process is included.

Introduction The 1980s ushered in an era of significant influence by stakeholders on the way businesses operated. The areas affected ran the gamut from corporate social responsibility to internal governance. [...]

Theory suggests that organizations should respond to external complexity with internal complexity. We examine whether 'environmentally sensitive' hospitals are more internally complex than 'environmentally insensitive' hospitals. Results show that environmentally sensitive and insensitive hospitals differed on three of the measures of internal complexity: goal complexity, strategic complexity, and relational complexity., A survey of executives from 73 nonacademic hospitals in Texas in 1990 found that the more sensitive a hospital is to external forces, the more likely it is to have a complex internal structure to meet perceived needs. Hospitals that are sensitive to their surrounding environments also have different strategic goals and broader decision-making processes than hospitals that are less sensitive to external factors. The survey results suggest that hospital managers should place less emphasis on traditional order and focus on adapting to constant change., Welcome to the world of somewhat ordered chaos, somewhat purposeful confusion; the world, above all, of flexibility, adaptiveness and action. Or to a new world violently turned upside down. (Peters [...]

Middle managers in acute care hospitals rated skills needed for their own jobs as more important than skills unrelated to their roles, but also rated their own performance of roles and skills lower than the importance of the work. Managers who have higher education were more likely to rate their competence higher, while managers who worked a clinical position before moving into management were less likely to give themselves high ratings. The study used survey results from 200 New England hospital managers., Summary Middle managers in acute care hospitals in New England rated the importance of most work roles and skills higher than their competence to perform them. Being male, having a [...]

Managers with dominant personalities may devalue the skills of their employees and often do not trust them as much as leaders with nurturing personalities. Senior hospital managers from several types of facilities were surveyed about their attitudes towards workers. Those whose personalities centered around exhibition, endurance, achievement and dominance were less likely to perceive differences in skills of different workers and more likely to question the motivation of subordinates. This study indicates the need for more research., Summary This field study examines the relationship between hospital executives' personality traits and both their perceptions of their subordinates' levels of skills and their level of trust in those subordinates. [...]

Hospital administrators' views of how to best accomplish change in controlled and participative work environments differ from the views in existing literature. Over 160 hospital administrators responded to eight scenarios about implementation approaches for change. In a participative culture the accommodation approach was expected to be most effective, while managers thought the bargaining and incentive approaches would get the best results in controlled work environments., Summary This study examined how top managers view the prospects of success and resistance when using four implementation approaches in participative and control cultures that foster climates more or less [...]

Modern Healthcare magazine conducted a survey of hospital executives to determine their assessment of the American Hospital Association's (AHA) performance since Richard Davidson took over as president in 1991. Of the 250 respondents, 42.9% gave the organization a 'B' rating for its overall national advocacy work. However, executives used the study to express their opposition to the inclusion of insurer- or physician-controlled provider networks in the AHA membership roster.

A Washington state survey has provided information on hospital administrators' academic backgrounds and geographic career patterns. Some 93% of urban respondents reported having advanced degrees, compared to 74% of rural respondents. The survey's results provide little evidence that administrators see rural positions as a means of advancing to urban careers., Summary Information on academic and geographic career patterns was obtained through a survey of 93 urban and rural hospital administrators in the State of Washington in 1990 (90 percent response [...]

Hospital leaders see tight finances and the need to develop new initiatives National health care reform legislation will affect hospitals in ways as dissimilar as hospitals themselves. How prepared are [...]

Many hospital CEOs have a new reason to smile. They've successfully reduced staff turnover, employee error and patient length of stay averages. They've also reduced the waiting time for activities [...]

Current computer technology for healthcare providers can deliver state-of-the-art systems, but cost concerns make it difficult for hospitals to justify. Responses from 456 hospital executives surveyed by Coopers and Lybrand and Zinn Enterprises also show confusion due to the array of information systems from which to choose. Respondents had mixed opinions about what an ideal clinical information system would include. Large hospitals usually wanted a clinical data base to support case management, while smaller hospitals also wanted integration of financial and clinical data.

A study of career attitudes among 324 hospital CEOs was used to theorize factors influencing future executive recruiting and training practices. Those factors included a change in necessary skill sets, a blending of humanitarian and business career interests in vocational preparation, and a capacity to expand beyond traditional roles in order to balance abilities in an executive team., Summary A recent survey of hospital CEOs revealed that they seem content with their careers but apprehensive about the future, due particularly to their projections regarding contextual issues in the [...]

In 1990, a study of problem areas faces by hospital administrators was conducted, replicating four previous studies carried out between 1948 and 1978. The 1948 study was conducted under the [...]

Anticipating continued steady growth in ambulatory care throughout the coming decade, hospitals are scrambling to determine the best way to administer the programs, measure the costs of delivering care, and [...]

A recent study of consumer attitudes shows that the public's perception of hospitals is hazy at best, and experts are warning hospitals to take steps to improve hospitals' image. In [...]

Proponents of patient-centered care strongly believe that it will prove to be cost-effective. But they also stress that the reasons for the new approach go far beyond financial considerations. 'We [...]

A survey conducted by the American Hospital Association's American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration and the Omni Group labor consulting firm determined that pre-petition stage unionization activity was more extensive during summer 1991 than government data had indicated. The survey results suggest that union activity in hospitals could increase nationwide, especially as economic recovery progresses and workers become more willing to risk their jobs. Information on how hospital administrators can avert union campaigns is provided., Unionizing activity is preceding apace in many hospitals. In fact, activity at the pre-petition stage was more extensive last summer than had previously been suggested by government data. This, according [...]

Byline: Joe Carlson As the effects of the unflagging recession begin to hit even the healthcare industry, hospital executives are more concerned than ever about the financial challenges facing their [...]

JCAHO gets lukewarm reviews from its CEO opinion survey CEOs from 923 hospitals gave the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) mixed reviews in a recent survey by [...]

Byline: Thomas Mone Hospital administrators are in a position to save thousands of lives every year-without having to practice medicine. By actively supporting the donation of organs and tissues, administrators [...]

Many hospitals, which still receive private health insurance payments largely by paper checks, say they could save money and time by shifting to electronic payments, according to a survey released [...]

A survey of hospital leaders published in the March 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that many have serious reservations about a mandatory error reporting [...]

Cost hikes don't hit employer plans. Rising health insurance costs from 1994 to 1999 didn't reduce the number of Americans covered by employer-based plans, according to a report released late [...]

This paper is based on the results of a European study aimed at identifying and exploring success parameters of high (quality) performance and their possible interrelationships. The study was conducted in three service sectors (the hospital, road freight transport and banking sectors) in three European countries (Spain, UK and the Netherlands) early in 1995. In this paper we shall concentrate on the hospital sector. Based on the hospital data, we examined if criteria other than those used in the European Quality Assurance (EQA) model are more accurate in identifying quality progress and business performance of hospitals. Our research shows that different explanatory variables are linked to progress in total quality management (TQM) and business performance. Moreover, the sector involved in the study plays an important role. Our first conclusion suggests that the general application of the EQA model as an evaluation instrument is subject to debate. A second conclusion is that there is a positive link between progress in TQM and perceived service quality by customers. TQM improves perceived service quality. Progress in TQM and perceived service quality by customers are positively, but only to a limited degree, linked to business performance. However, this may be due to the general level of quality management in the sector studied. In general, we conclude that progress in TQM leads to higher business performance of the hospital, indicating the efficiency/cost effect, and to a higher perceived service quality by patients, indicating the effectiveness.

If hospital administrators could start over again, 40% would select professions other than health care, according to a soon-to-be released survey by Dallas-based health care consulting firm Campbell Wilson. The [...]

According to a new survey of hospital administrators by the Lafayette, La.-based Schumacher Group, 10% of hospital administrators would choose an emergency department other than the one at their own [...]

The success of TV emergency room dramas notwithstanding, real ERs are still facing lots of troubles. And one of them seems to be the confidence of their administrators, according to [...]

Hospital CEOs rank strategic planning as their most critical concern today, and very few of those heading independent hospitals would consider joining a system. These are but two of the [...]