A three-way corporate partnership for specialty hospitals

Ultimately, the burden of escalating health care costs will be shared by all. A coalition of hospitals, suppliers, and group purchasing organizations possesses the power to communicate with each other as well as to ensure viability in the 21st century. Creative contracting will hopefully become the wave of the future in the health care industry.     

Marketing specialty hospitals in the 1990s: making patients the best marketing spokespeople

These are a few of the ways that a health care provider can influence the patient's perception of the treatment received. That impression is a lasting one. A positive referral can be a strong marketing tool that generates revenue and goodwill. If an institution provides quality health care services in a comfortable environment, then patients can easily be encouraged to tell their families and friends about their experiences in the institution.     

Dividend announcements under varying market conditions: The case of specially designated dividends

In this study the author examines differences in the behavior of stock returns surrounding the announcements of the specially designated dividends (SDDs) between bull markets and bear markets. Results show that SDDs declared during bull markets have a significantly higher positive effect on stock prices than those declared during bear markets. This evidence, new to literature, indicates that SDDs declared during bull markets are viewed by the market as more favorable than those declared during bear markets.     

Managing under pressure: HRM in hospitals

Health reforms in the last 25 years focused largely on structural change, cost containment and the introduction of market mechanisms, and the importance of the management of HR has often been overlooked. Pressures for efficiency and effectiveness are particularly pronounced in the hospital sector, which is the most resource-intensive component of the health care system. One important aspect of improving and maintaining service delivery in hospitals is to better manage the HR function. This paper highlights the importance and complexities of HRM in hospitals throughout the world.     

Cost cutting for hospitals: a heuristic approach

This article has suggested a model that can provide some consistency and order as hospital managers attempt to find reliable yet palatable means of cutting their institutions' costs. Like any model, it is only as sensitive as the manner in which it is applied; it is a guide rather than a substitute for clear thinking by management. Used in context, however, the model encourages clear thinking when hospital managers might otherwise be tempted to dispose of facts that do not conform to their own theories or, alternatively, find isolated budget solutions that are simple and neat but suboptimal. In the final analysis, thinking clearly is the ultimate model when the order comes to cut costs.     

Focus as emphasis: Conceptual and performance implications for hospitals

Focus in hospitals has been heralded as the next frontier in improving its efficiency and efficacy (Herzlinger, 2004). However, there is scarce empirical work examining its effects in this setting. Focus in hospitals can take several different forms, ranging from standalone specialty centers to a hospital that chooses to emphasize in some operational way a particular specialty while still offering a full range of services. Although standalone facilities can be found in many locations, the vast majority of hospitals must follow the latter route to achieve focus. Current conceptualizations and measures of focus struggle to capture this construct in a way that does not assume a narrowing of range of offerings. In contrast to the traditional view of focus as narrowing, in this paper, we address the perspective of focus as emphasis. We select cardiology as the specialty and use secondary data for more than 264,000 patients in New York State to examine the relationship between focus as emphasis and hospital cost performance. Our results support the notion that such focus is associated with lower costs. Moreover, our results also show that focus in hospitals can be operationalized as a disproportionate emphasis on one line of service, without necessarily narrowing the overall range of services provided.     

San Francisco success story: merging hospitals and increasing giving

Pacific Presbyterian Medical Center and Children's Hospital of San Francisco not only pulled off a major merger but they raised total annual giving by nearly 20 percent to $9.4 million.     

创富时代:如何善待财富和"富人"

人们从来没有像今天这样关注中国的先富阶层的生存状态。今年以来，全国工商联副主席、身价超10亿元的民营企业家李海仓遇害，前不久浙江知名企业家周祖豹被刺，等等。一连串激起种种猜测和议论的话题，让大批民营企业家在率先走上富裕路之后，不得不开始面对人们看待财富和“富人”的各种眼神。     

Urban Political Ecologies and Children's Geographies: Queering Urban Ecologies of Childhood

This article focuses on the material and discursive constructions of nature and children in the city. While dominant representations and idealizations of nature and childhood depend on the binary logic of the nature/culture and rural/urban divide, there is also a simplification and romanticization of nature in children's geographies and a lack of children and their spaces in urban political ecology. We argue that children and nature in cities need to be removed from a binary model of being and attended to in more nuanced ways in urban political ecology and children's geographies. In this regard, we suggest that both nature and children in cities need to be queered. We need to ask how the production of urban spaces (re)creates particular romantic and idealized relations with natures that reify the binaries between nature/culture, and male/female through a heteronormative framework. The purpose of this article is to bring the critical nature–society theories of urban political ecology into conversation with work in children's geographies that explores the ‘nature' of childhood, and in doing so queer the relationship between children and nature. Drawing on research on queer ecologies, and queered childhoods, we aim to provide a framework to rethink and queer both nature and children in cities.     

Efficiency of hospitals in the Czech Republic: Conditional efficiency approach

Journal of Productivity Analysis - This paper estimates the cost efficiency of 81 general hospitals in the Czech Republic during 2006–2010. We employ the conditional order-m approach to...     

Capacity,competiton and efficiency in hospitals: A nonparametric approach

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new,multiple output measure of plant capacity which we use to analyze the performance of hospitals in different competitive environments. To evaluate each hospital's plant capacity, we employ a nonparametric (linear programming) framework. The resulting measure of capacity can be determined from observed inputs and outputs and is based on the best practice performance of all hospitals in the sample. This methodology is closely related to Farrell-type measures of efficiency and, as a by-product, yields information on efficiency of individual hospitals. This technique imposes no prespecified functional form and allows for multiple outpus (to account for differences in case-mix). We apply this methodological approach to a sample of hospitals in Michigan. Our results are used to compare capacity utilization and efficiency of hospitals across different competitive environments.The refereeing process of this paper was handled by R. Kopp.     

Family Arrangements and Children's Education Among Migrants: A Case Study of China

As China is experiencing an urban revolution with massive rural-to-urban migration, millions of children are profoundly affected by their parents’ migration and their decisions about family arrangements. With the discriminatory hukou system and harsh living conditions in cities, the dilemma migrant parents face is whether they should take their children with them to the city or leave them behind. This decision determines the household, school and community environments that children live in, which, in turn, shape their well-being. With a unique strategy of comparing ‘left-behind children’ to ‘migrant children’ and a gendered perspective, this article examines how different family arrangements among migrants and consequent housing conditions and gender dynamics affect children's educational well-being. Our findings demonstrate the complex impact of family arrangements on children, which is conditioned by wage income and the gender of the absent parent and the child. We find that children from less favorable socio-economic backgrounds benefit more from moving to cities. Children living with both parents and those living with their mother or grandparents tend to do better. While the effect of housing conditions is marginal, family arrangements have a gendered effect on children. Related policy recommendations are provided.     

The disaster response performance of hospitals in Taiwan: evaluation and classification

Hospitals need disaster response plannings and temporary shelters to rescue victims in disasters. In Taiwan, there are 82 emergency medical service (EMS) hospitals are requested to possess guildlines of preparedness and responses to mitigation the damage and recovery the pre-event status in a disaster. A measurement chart including three major factors??facility, manpower, and disaster plan and drill mode??was created to evaluate the performance of disaster management of these EMS hospitals. Based on the expert opinions, some hospitals were selected as a reference set prior to the accreditation. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to classify each of the remaining hospitals into qualified or unqualified classes. Then, each unqualified hospital was recommended to improve its practice of disaster preparedness and responses into the qualified level. We also find that, on average, private hospitals perform better than public hospitals and medical centers perform better than the regional hospitals. But, the differences are not statistically significant.     

Understanding information exchange in healthcare operations: Evidence from hospitals and patients

Coordination – or the information exchange among physicians and hospital staff – is necessary for desirable patient outcomes in healthcare delivery. However, coordination is difficult because healthcare delivery processes are information intensive, complex and require interactions of hospitals with autonomous physicians working in multiple operational systems (i.e. multiple hospitals). We examine how three important variables distinctive of the healthcare operations context – use of IT for dissemination of test results (ITDR) (i.e. electronic health records systems) by physicians and hospital staff, social interaction ties among them, and physician employment – influence information exchange and patient perceptions of their care. Drawing from the literature on process inter-dependencies and coordination, vertical integration and social exchange, we develop and test research hypotheses linking ITDR, social interaction ties and physician employment to information exchange relationship, and information exchange relationship to provider–patient communication. Using a paired sample of primary survey data and secondary archival data from CMS HCAHPS for 173 hospitals in the USA, we find that increased information exchange relationship drives provider–patient communication, and increased social interaction ties drives information exchange relationship. Social interaction ties fully mediates the relationship between ITDR and information exchange relationship. Physician employment amplifies the link between ITDR and social interaction ties, but does not have an effect on the link between ITDR and information exchange. We do not find a direct relationship between ITDR, and information exchange relationship or provider–patient communication.     

Fairness perceptions and work attitudes revisited: roles of employee specialty,hospital level and ownership

Compensation is widely acknowledged as an important job element in the eyes of employees. Health care is a special industry in which compensation received by employees differs greatly. This study examines empirically the relationships between hospital employees' perceptions of compensation fairness and their work attitudes, taking into account the roles of employee specialty, hospital level and ownership. Using data from 2,938 employees of thirty hospitals in Taiwan, the results indicate that fairness perceptions and work attitudes differ significantly among hospital employees according to their specialties. Hospital level and ownership exert impacts on employees' fairness perceptions, although not on their work attitudes. A positive relationship is observed between fairness perceptions and work attitudes of hospital employees.     

Matrix management in hospitals: testing theories of matrix structure and development.

A study of 315 hospitals with matrix management programs was used to test several hypotheses concerning matrix management advanced by earlier theorists. The study verifies that matrix management involves several distinctive elements that can be scaled to form increasingly complex types of lateral coordinative devices. The scalability of these elements is evident only cross-sectionally. The results show that matrix complexity is not an outcome of program age, nor does matrix complexity at the time of implementation appear to influence program survival. Matrix complexity, finally, is not determined by the organization's task diversity and uncertainty. The results suggest several modifications in prevailing theories of matrix organization.     

A question of community: at not-for-profit hospitals health is a local affair

For-profit hospitals' entrepreneurial status, big business climate, and adherence to market discipline mandate that their services be considered akin to any other market commodity, to be bought and sold at the highest margin to the largest audience. Investor owned healthcare's primary allegiance must be a reasonable return to its stockholders and as a result it must avoid unprofitable services and unprofitable patients, by displacing their costly burdens onto the rest of the healthcare system.