Introduction
Pate Memorial Hospital is a 600 bed, debt free , not-for profit , one of the six general hospital located on the southern periphery of a major western city. It is financially stronger than most of the metropolitan-based hospitals in the United States and has the highest overall occupancy rate among the six general hospitals.
Industrial Analysis of Hospital and Ambulatory health care services
There’s a dramatic transformation in Health care and hospital industry in the past four decades. Hospitals were largely charitable institutions with non profit orientation until 1960s. Additional funds were poured into expansion and construction of medical schools, medicare and Medicaid subsidized health care for the indigent, disabled and elderly. These programs reimbursed hospitals for their incurred costs plus an additional return on investment. So, there was a dramatic increases in commercial insurance coverage and health care became accessible to a majority of US citizens. However, by the year 1980s, the health care costs were being so high that forced the federal government to reconsider its role in health care. By the end of the decade, hospitals were starting to process voluntary cost-cutting programs to stave off additional government intervention. But still, the health care expenditures continued to outpace the consumer price index into the 1990s. In late 1980s and early 1990s, the federal government sought to reduce health care costs through cut-backs in subsidy programs and cost-control regulations. On the other hand, innovations in health care delivery serverly reduced the number of patients serviced by hospitals.
One innovation was preventive health care programs which include health maintenance organizations (HMOs) and preferred provider organizations ( PPOs ) . An HMO encourages preventive health care by providing medical services with a fixed monthly fee. HMOs typically have a contractual relationships with