Hospital Diversification into Long-Term Care

Abstract

In the 1990s, acute care hospitals in the United States encountered an unstable operating environment created by a series of transformations in the health care delivery system and long-term-care market. Confronted with an array of economic pressures and demographic changes, hospitals were motivated to engage in long-term-care diversification, such as establishing a long-term-care unit or providing home health services, as a means of entering new markets and ensuring financial stability. This article examines the organizational, market, and community factors associated with this strategic activity among a national sample of urban and rural hospitals.

Internal and external environmental factors affecting the performance of hospital‐based home nursing care

“…For the number of physicians and nurses per bed, there was a very significant positive correlation with performance of HNC. The result was thought to be similar to that of Shah et al. 's (2001), who reported that hospitals with more nurses compared with other staff wanted to specialize in long‐term medical service.…”

“…In other words, to increase revenue of hospitals and to manage patient stays in hospitals, the bed turnover rate should be promoted and early discharge should be induced so home health‐care service is needed to treat patients continuously even after their discharge. From the results of this study, a larger number of operating beds was followed by the significantly increased visiting cases of HNC and the result was the same as that of Shah et al. (2001) reporting that hospitals with >400 beds had more intention of providing HNC service by seven times compared with those with <100 beds.…”

“…Furthermore, the study defined the capabilities and variances among the hospitals in the absence of specific strategies to assimilate the care into the medical industry. In Shah et al. 's (2001) study, the American medical institutions' unstable operating environment was analysed together with its attempts to create a new market to obtain financial stability in light of the volatile medical providing system and its long‐term medical market perspective.…”

Analysis of Hospital Characteristics Affecting the Choice of Management Strategy Types: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Private Hospitals in Japan

“…In the United States, facing economic pressures and demographic changes, acute care hospitals diversified their businesses into long-term care such as long-term care units or home health services [26]. Some hospitals opened assisted living facilities for long-term care to alleviate troubles after discharge, such as when transitioning to nursing facilities [27].…”

Achieving Strategic Consensus in the Hospital Setting: A Middle Management Perspective

“…Bourgeois (1 985) empirically demonstrates that matching environmental volatility with management's perceptions of the environment significantly improves a firm's performance by minimizing the costs of faulty information. External factors of the firm are key indicators of long-term success (Shah, Fennell, and Mor 2001), and with their position as "linking pins," middle managers in healthcare organizations are in a unique position to scan, interpret, understand, and act on environmental uncertainty (Floyd and Wooldridge 2000). Other researchers argue that organizations can achieve strategic objectives by using their unique internal capabilities and resources (King 2001).…”